GIFT   OF   CAPT.   AND    MRS. 
PAUL  MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


\\  B.  H    BLACKWELL  Ltl  .  | 

nnnVspllprs. 


LIBRARY 


XTbe  IRew  lEra  Series 


(VOLUME  TEN) 


THE   NEW  LABOUR   OUTLOOK 


First  Published  April  1921 


Leonard  Parsons  Ltd. 


THE    NEW 
LABOUR    OUTLOOK 


BY 

ROBERT   WILLIAMS 


LONDON 

LEONARD   PARSONS 

DEVONSHIRE   STREET 


i  /I  'X  i  A-  0 


The  Children  of  this  and  all  other 
Nations,  including  our  own  darling 
boy,  "Vanya,"  in  the  knowledge 
that  before  they  reach  manhood  and 
womanhood  the  Fight  for  Socialism 
will  be  definitely  won. 


S  PREFACE 

The  following  has  been  written  in  part  before  I 
went  to  Russia,  and  the  remainder  since  my  return. 
It  represents  my  considered  views  on  policy  and 
purpose,  whatever  defects  it  may  contain  of  a 
literary  character. 

Few  of  us  appreciate  the  fact  that  we  are  passing 

through  a  definitel}^  revolutionary  period.     It  is  a 

well-known  historical  truism  that  in  all  revolution - 

fi  ary  periods  the  bulk  of  those  who  lived  through 

1^  these  times  considered  the  events  happening  round 

^  and  about  them  were  mere  transient  affairs.    What 

P.  is  called  human  progress  consists  of  the  partial  or 

■p  complete    success   of    an    active    and    intelligent 

a.    minority  forcing  their  views  and   con\'ictions  on 

K   an   undiscerning    and    indiscriminating    majority. 

g    'Twas  ever  so.     It  will  remain  so. 

k;        I  hope  the  book  will  arouse  criticism.     It  will 

assuredly   receive   condemnation.      So   much   the 

better.     Anyone  who  goes  through  life  without  his 

share   of   criticism,    and   even   abuse,    contributes 

nothing  of  real  value  to  that  which  we  call  human 

progress. 

I  regret  that  space  considerations  prevented  me 
from  going  more  fully  into  that  which  here  and 
there  has  merely  been  hinted  at  or  dealt  with  very 
briefly.     However,  there  it  is.  and  I  leave  it  thus. 

R.  W. 


CONTENTS 

Introductory        7 

Chapter  I. 
The  Older  Outlook 30 

Chapter  II. 
The  Changing  Outlook 59 

Chapter  III. 
The  Newer  Outlook  .        .       _ 104 

Conclusion 154 


THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

There  is  nothing  brand-new  under  the  sun,  and 
it  would  be  idle  to  pretend  there  is  a  really  new 
outlook  of  Labour.  There  is,  however,  a  con- 
stantly changing  outlook,  a  transitionary  out- 
look. It  has  been  well  and  truly  said  that  all 
our  thinking  is  influenced,  if  not  actually  caused, 
by  the  material  conditions  which  surround  us. 
There  are,  of  course,  many  misled  by  the  time- 
worn  and  obsolete  idea  that  men  in  general,  and 
great  men  in  particular,  are  responsible  for  the 
changes  which  occur  in  human  development. 
We  shall  be  wise,  however,  in  searching  for  the 
causes  of  the  changed  Labour  outlook  not  in  per- 
sonal factors  so  much  as  economic  and  material 
considerations.  Mankind  will  remain  undeni- 
ably the  instrument  through  which  material 
forces  will  express  themselves.  Retired  half-pay 
ofiicers,  who  live  in  the  back^voods  of  places  like 
Cheltenham  or  Exmouth,  when  they  are  not 
rendering  the  lives  of  their  Club  attendants  in 
Piccadilly  and  Pall  Mall  intolerable,  imagine,  in 
their  abysmal  ignorance  of  the  main  current  of 


8  THE   NEW   LABOUR   OUTLOOK 

events,  that  Labour  Unrest  is  the  product  of 
wicked  agitators  or  the  thrice-cursed  result  of 
free,  elementary  education,  and  they  can  do  no 
more  than  call  for  the  repeal  of  the  chief  Educa- 
tion Acts,  or  shout  loudly  over  their  Morning 
Post  for  a  "  whiff  of  grapeshot "  as  the  one  and 
only  remedy  for  strikes  and  Labour  upheavals. 

They,  poor  products  of  their  material  condi- 
tions, must  be  excused  on  the  grounds  of  their 
aloofness  from  all  the  things  which  chiefly 
matter  except  their  own  inane  lotus-eating  lives. 

The  difiference  between,  say,  a  driver  of  a 
modern  motor- bus  in  the  crowded  London 
thoroughfares  and  one  of  his  predecessors,  a 
driver  of  an  old  horse-drawn  vehicle,  is  greater 
than  the  difference  between  a  feudal  baron  and 
a  modern  capitalist.  Our  typical  motor-bus 
driver  is  about  the  livest  wire,  both  as  a  prole- 
tarian and  a  trade  unionist,  that  I  know.  He  is 
in  many  respects  probably  the  most  militant 
worker  of  all  the  sections  of  Labour  provided 
for  in  the  Transport  Workers'  Federation.  Com- 
pare him,  however,  with  the  driver  of  the  old 
lumbering  horse-drawn  vehicle  This  individual 
could  not  be  induced  to  join  a  trade  union  even 
if  he  were  offered  free  membership.  He  was 
horsy  and  sporty.  He  called  Edward  the 
Seventh  "  Teddy,"  knew  all  the  winners  back  to 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

the  "early  umpties,"  and  was  more  free  from 
any  revolutionary  sentiments  than  the  mistress 
of  a  growing  ladies'  seminary.  The  difference 
between  these  two  well-understood  and  typical 
cases  is  the  difference  of  the  machine.  The  bus 
driver  who  comes  earlier  in  point  of  time  has  the 
associations  of  the  stable.  He  is  of  the  groom,  or 
personal  man-servant  type,  coming  probably  from 
a  rural  area.  There  is  an  immediate  association 
between  himself  and  his  horses.  He  is  as  much 
in  their  charge  as  they  are  in  his.  They  knew 
their  way  through  the  maze  of  traffic  almost  as 
well  as  he  did  himself.  Now  look  at  our  modern 
bus  driver :  he  is  the  living  embodiment  of 
"Straker"  in  Bernard  Shaw's  Man  and  Super- 
man. He  has  in  his  hands  a  machine — great, 
heavy  and  apparently  cumbrous  thing  though  it 
be,  it  responds  to  the  veriest  touch  of  the  steering- 
wheel.  Instead  of  driving  an  animal  with  instinct 
and  vagaries  like  his  own,  he  controls  a  wonderful 
mechanism.  He  learns  automatically  the  laws 
of  mechanical  cause  and  effect.  He  returns  with 
his  motor-bus  to  the  garage  which,  unlike  the 
old-time  stable  with  its  straw  and  litter,  grooms 
and  ostlers,  is  a  factory  for  repair  work,  washing, 
cleaning  and  overhauling  in  general.  Highly 
qualified  engineers  and  their  mates  help  to 
produce  a  mass-psychology. 


JO    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

To-day,  while  competing  with  electric  tram 
and  tube  for  the  passenger  traffic  of  Greater 
London,  he  knows  he  is  but  one  small  cog  in  the 
great  machine  of  the  Traffic  Combine.  It  is  not 
by  theory  but  by  conditions  of  employment  that 
he  is  made  an  industrial  unionist. 

I  have  chosen  the  foregoing  illustration,  not 
because  it  is  any  more  applicable  than  others, 
such  as  the  gradual  supersession  of  manual  labour 
and  handicraft  in  engineering,  textiles,  boot-  and 
shoe-making,  wood  working,  and  a  host  of  other 
trades  too  numerous  to  mention,  but  because  it 
is  one  in  which  the  changed  outlook  is  radical, 
immediate,  and  easily  observable  by  all. 

I  have  many  times  wondered  to  myself  why  it 
is  that  my  outlook  on  life  is  widely  different  from 
that  of  my  father.  He  was  a  docker,  working  at 
a  time  before  the  general  dock  labour  movement 
was  commenced  in  1889.  His  wages  were  25s. 
per  week,  and  he  was  glad  to  work  on  Sunday  in 
order  to  earn  a  few  additional  shillings.  Accord- 
ing to  his  circumscribed  ideas,  the  system  for 
which  he  worked  and  under  which  he  lived  was 
a  permanent  one,  and  his  one  idea  in  life  was  to 
obtain  just  sufficient  to  maintain  himself  and 
those  who  were  dependent  upon  him. 

Some  ten  years  after  he  died  I  commenced 
work  at  the  self-same  docks,  and  in  consequence 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

of  the  effective  results  achieved  in  the  mean- 
time, I  was  frequently  enabled — working  on  the 
piecework    system    and   irregularly  employed — 
to  earn  as  much  in  a  day  as  my  father  did  in  a 
week.     While  he  was  content  with  the  Christian 
Herald  and  comparable  literature,  I  was  busily 
nosing  into  the  works  of  Karl  Marx  and  reading 
the  extensive  literature  published  by  the  Ration- 
alist Press  Association,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
writings  of  Blatchford,  Hyndman,  Keir  Hardie, 
and  hearing  the  speeches  of  Tillett,  Mann  and 
other  well-known  Labour  Leaders.     In  my  own 
work,  that  of  a  coal-trimmer,  it  was  not  so  much 
the  development  of  the  machine  as  the  introduc- 
tion of  labour-savins  contrivances  which  affected 
profoundly  my  own  mentality.     As  a  youth,  when 
I  commenced  to  do  a  man's  work,  the  bulk  of 
the  coal  which  was  loaded  in  the  port  at  which 
I  worked  was  exported  in  what  we  called  the 
"  ordinary  "  —  and  frequently  "  double-decked  " 
— type  of  steamer,  for  which  the  average  pay- 
ment was  about  3d.   per  ton,   divided  between 
twelve  men.     When  I  left  my  work  to  assume 
my  present  position  some  fifteen  years  later,  two- 
thirds  of  the  coal  was  taken  away  in  ships  of 
what  are  called  the  "  self-trimming  "  type,  for 
which  the  average  payment  was  l^d.   per  ton, 
divided  between  six   men.     The   labour-saving 


12    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

device,  like  the  mechanical  contrivance,  is  one  in- 
troduced deliberately  by  the  captains  of  industry 
in  order  to  minimise  labour  charges.  I  and  my 
fellow- workers  were  therefore  compelled  to  realise 
that  if  this  tendency  to  build  and  use  self- 
trimmers  were  allowed  to  continue  unchecked, 
those  men  who  were  disemployed  as  a  result  of 
the  use  of  the  labour-saving  device,  or  mechanical 
contrivance,  would  be  driven,  in  the  stress  of 
competition  for  work,  to  offer  themselves  at 
cheaper  rates  of  pay  to  replace  the  men  who 
remained  in  the  job.  This,  of  course,  would 
tend  to  bring  down  wages  to — and  even  below 
— the  bare  level  of  subsistence. 

The  old  outlook  of  Labour  can  be  easily  deter- 
mined by  watching  a  Labour  Demonstration  in 
one  of  our  big  towns.  When  a  big  demonstra- 
tion takes  place  in  Hyde  Park  or  Trafalgar 
Square,  the  serried  ranks  of  trade  unionists  will 
be  seen,  each  section  j)roudly  carrying  its  own 
banner.  The  mottoes  on  the  older  ones  excite 
the  disdain  and  even  contempt  of  the  younger 
and  more  militant  proletarian,  and  they  serve 
as  indications  of  the  changed  outlook  of  trade 
unionism.  Such  inscriptions  as  "  A  Fair  Day's 
Wage  for  a  Fair  Day's  Work  "  excite  laughter 
from  the  modern  student  of  Marx,  who  knows 
that  the   wage  system  means  the   robbery   of 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

the  workers.  The  old  motto  "  Defence  not 
Defiance  "  enrages  the  trade  unionist,  who  be- 
lieves that  the  best  policy  for  the  workers  to 
pursue  is  unrelenting  attack  upon  the  capitalist 
system  and  all  that  system  stands  for.  One 
sees  again  a  banner  blazoned  with  a  portrayal 
of  the  visit  of  a  delegation  to  the  bedroom  of 
a  disabled  comrade,  intending  to  indicate  the 
advantao-es  of  disablement  and  sick  benefits  and 
kindred  objects.  The  modern  trade  unionist 
tends  more  and  more  to  scorn  such  adventitious 
aids  to  trade  unionism.  The  union,  he  main- 
tains, must  be  a  fighting  organisation  first  and 
foremost,  and  a  friendly  society  last — that  is, 
assuming  that  he  is  inclined  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  friendly  benefits  at  all. 

The  older  craft  unions,  created  round  and 
about  the  tools  used  by  their  members  in  their 
particular  trade,  sheltered  and  protected  the 
craft  in  which  the  men  found  employment,  and 
they  appeared  to  envisage  the  existing  regime 
as  a  stable  one,  susceptible  only  to  small  accre- 
tions of  change.  These  older  craft  unions  were 
conservative  to  the  last  degree,  subscribing  in  a 
vague  and  incoherent  manner  to  the  now  ex- 
ploded theory  of  the  older  political  economists, 
that  there  was  a  fixed  wages  fund  beyond  which 
they  were  unable  to  draw.     In  many  cases  they 


14    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

treated  the  labourers  in  their  own  industry  and 
in  other  industries  with  unfeigned  contempt, 
imagining  —  stupidly  enough  —  that  the  more 
these  labourers  obtained,  the  less  it  would  leave 
for  them  to  share  with  their  beneficent  em- 
ployers who  provided  them  with  work.  The 
craft  conception  of  industry,  however,  has  been 
broken  down  by  the  sheer  insistence  of  economic 
and  material  development,  although  there  is  still 
a  relic  of  trade  and  craft  superiority. 

One  of  the  foremost  factors  in  altering  the 
outlook  of  organised  labour  is  the  arrival  and 
growth  of  the  large-scale  industry.  The  largest 
organisation  of  men  engaged  in  one  clearly  de- 
fined industry  is,  of  course,  the  Miners'  Federa- 
tion of  Great  Britain.  In  this  organisation  old- 
time  ideas  have  been  modified  by  the  changes 
in  the  mining  calling.  The  earlier  organisations 
were  formed  round  and  about  the  23ithead  districts 
in  which  the  men  originally  found  employment. 
Organisation  at  that  period  was  confined  to  the 
district  or  districts  in  which  the  men  resided. 
Frequently,  also,  the  men  at  the  coal-face  ignored 
other  sections,  like  the  surfacemen  and  timber- 
men,  inseparably  connected  though  they  were 
with  the  calling.  In  every  effort  they  made  dur- 
ing the  earlier  stages  to  improve  their  economic 
status,  by  adding  to  their  wages,  by  shortening 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

hours  or  improving  the  general  working  con- 
ditions, they  were  invariably  met  with  the  reply 
by  the  employers  that  they  could  not  afiord 
any  improvement  in  conditions,  because  of  the 
competition  to  which  they  were  subject  from 
other  employers  in  other  districts.  The  em- 
ployers would  argue  that  they  were  in  competition 
for  trade  with  other  employers,  and  were  not 
loath  to  suggest  that  wages  and  conditions  in 
their  own  particular  collieries  were  superior  to 
those  of  their  competitors.  The  workers  were 
therefore  compelled  to  ask  themselves  why,  if  it 
was  undesirable  to  allow  themselves  to  compete 
upon  the  principle  of  the  jungle  instinct  for 
work  in  their  own  district,  they  should  be  the 
instruments  of  competition  between  one  district 
and  another.  And,  as  a  result  of  the  harsh 
experience  of  their  daily  lives  and  the  exploita- 
tion by  their  immediate  employers,  they  extended 
local  organisation  to  district  organisation,  and 
district  organisation  to  national  organisation. 

The  old-time  point  of  view  and  outlook  was 
almost  invariably  determined — as  is,  in  fact,  the 
newer  outlook — by  economic  facts  and  circum- 
stances. Trade  unionism  in  its  earlier  forms  was 
limited  by  the  fact  that  there  was  a  much  more 
personal  and  human  relationship  between  master 
and  man,  or  employer  and  workman,  than  there 


]6    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

is  to-day.  The  employers,  as  a  rule,  were  very 
small  capitalists,  as  we  understand  tlie  word 
capitalist  to-day.  A  man  could  easily  acquire 
a  small  amount  of  property  or  capital,  and  tlie 
active  workman  of  the  day  become  the  employer 
of  the  morrow.  He  lived  on  or  about  the  job  he 
owned  and  controlled,  and  he  was  supervisory 
director  as  well  as  a  capitalist  in  embryo. 

The  growing  power  of  the  workmen's  organisa- 
tions compelled  the  employers  to  institute  and 
develop  comparable  organisation  in  order  to  resist 
the  growingly  insistent  demands  for  higher  wages 
and  improved  conditions  of  life.  There  used  to 
be  a  saying  in  Lancashire  that  there  were  only 
three  generations  from  "  clogs  to  clogs,"  meaning^ 
of  course,  that  the  textile  employer  of  the  period 
had  worn  clogs  as  an  operative,  and  that  his 
grandson  would  be  back  again  in  the  factory  in 
consequence  of  the  operation  of  economic  laws 
and  the  want  of  stability  in  industry  in  general. 
This  theory  of  "  clogs  to  clogs,"  although  occasion- 
ally translated  into  practice  nowadays,  is  by  no 
means  general  in  its  application.  It  must  be 
generally  admitted  that  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
industrial  development  there  was  a  great  element 
of  competition  between  employer  and  employer 
for  a  share  of  national  and  international  trade, 
but  the   formation  and   growth   of  employers' 


INTRODUCTORY  17 


associations  tends  to  eliminate  the  elements  of 
competition  from  their  respective  businesses  and 
industries.  In  order  to  reduce  their  labour  costs, 
which  were  a  first  charge  upon  production,  the 
ingenuity  of  the  human  mind  was  taxed  to  find 
mechanical  means  and  cunningly-conceived  con- 
trivances and  devices  to  reduce  the  amount  of 
human  labour  required.  The  illusive  theory  of 
the  old-time  economists  was  that  every  cheapen- 
ing in  the  cost  of  production  would  redound  to 
the  advantage  of  the  consumer  and  the  general 
public,  and  thereby  to  the  men  who  were  dis- 
placed in  the  particular  industry,  employment 
being  eventually  found  for  them  by  an  increase 
in  the  demand  for  the  commodities  produced. 
This,  however,  is  not  borne  out  by  the  facts  of 
latter-day  industry. 

It  might  be  said  in  passing,  that  the  volume  of 
employment  is  now  greater  than  at  any  other 
period  of  human  history.  What  we  must  bear 
in  mind  is  that  the  proportion  of  those  engaged 
in  productive  and  useful  employment  tends  to 
become  gradually  less.  Even  during  the  war, 
when  man-power  was  presumed  to  be  taxed  to 
the  utmost  in  order  to  maintain  six  or  seven 
millions  of  men  in  the  fighting  services  and 
another  two  millions  or  more  behind,  preparing 
munitions  and  materials  of  war,  we  still  saw  well- 

B 


18    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

to-do  families  having  at  tlieir  disposal  retinues  of 
men-servants  in  order  to  gratify  tlieir  manifold 
whims  and  caprices.     I  am  reminded  that   for 
months  hundreds  of  building  trades  operatives 
have  been  cleansing  the  fagades  of  the  big  hotels 
in  Northumberland  Avenue  in  order  to  prepare 
for  the  reception  of  rich  visitors  from  America, 
the  Colonies  and  Europe,  who  were  prevented 
from  globe-trotting  and  sight-seeing  during  the 
war.     This  is  being  done  at  a  time  when  millions 
of  those  who  fought  and  suffered  during  the  war 
cannot   find  adequate   housing  accommodation. 
One  can  observe  arriving  in  London  from  the 
outer  districts  during  the  hours  between  8  a.m. 
to  10  A.M.  hundreds  of  thousands  of  fit  and  active 
men  employed  in  banks,  counting-houses,  clearing 
houses,  exchanges,  insurance  offices  and  the  rest, 
who  perform  no  socially  useful  labour,  but  occupy 
their  time  in  registering,  checking  and  docketing 
the  results  of  the  labour  of  the  actively  useful 
class  in  the  great  industrial  districts.     That  is  to 
say,  the  bulk  of  the  work  at  which  they  are  em- 
ployed could  be  dispensed  with  under  a  properly 
arranged  condition  of  affairs. 

For  generations  prior  to  the  war  Socialists  and 
Labour  men,  who  had  seen  through  the  hollow 
sham  of  what  they  called  the  capitalist  system, 
urged  the  workers  to  organise  themselves  econo- 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

mically  in  the  Co-operative  Movement,industrially 
in  the  Trade  Union  Movement,  and  politically 
in  the  Socialist  Movement,  for  the  purpose  of 
overthrowing  the  wasteful  and  unprofitableindivi- 
dualistic  regime,  and  establishing  a  system  of 
society  upon  a  co-operative  basis. 

When  one  refers  again  and  again  to  men's 
minds  being  influenced  chiefly  by  material  con- 
siderations, it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  many, 
if  not  most,  of  the  pioneers  acted  from  motives 
based  upon  the  highest  ethical  conceptions.  In 
fact,  progress  is  almost  entirely  due  to  the 
spirited  advocacy  by  the  few  of  great  causes, 
making  for  the  development  of  human  relation- 
ships and  institutions.  It  was  not  possible,  how- 
ever, that  they  in  their  respective  periods  should 
bring  about  any  tangible  results  by  education, 
agitation  and  advocacy,  without  the  compelling 
economic  and  industrial  preparedness.  It  was  no 
more  possible  for  Robert  Owen  to  introduce  the 
Co-operative  Commonwealth  by  means  of  his 
Grand  Consolidated  Union  of  Labour  Movement 
in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century  than  it  would 
be  for  Robert  Smillie  to  compel  the  nationalisa- 
tion of  mines  unless  and  until  there  appeared  the 
mental  and  moral  preparedness  of  the  people 
and  the  economic  preparedness  of  Society  as  a 
whole.     Even  its  most  bitter  critics  will  admit 


20    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

that  trade  union  organisation  has  brought  about 
important  and  beneficial  results  to  its  various 
adherents,  but  there  is  no  denying  the  fact  that 
it  falls  short  of  what  many  hoped  for,  worked 
for,  and  expected. 

The  organisation  of  the  employing  class  has 
developed  with  more  celerity  and  has  taken  a 
wider  outlook  than  the  organisation  of  the  work- 
people. Combines,  trusts,  syndicates,  rings  and 
cartels  have  been  formed  for  national  and  inter- 
national exploitation.  Margarine  firms  and  soap 
firms,  with  their  interdependent  glycerine,  chemi- 
cal and  other  trades,  own  and  control  alkaline 
deposits  in  this  and  other  countries.  They  domi- 
nate the  cotton-seed  and  soya-bean  plantations — 
they  control,  in  short,  the  raw  material  of  their 
industry  at  its  source,  in  order  to  avoid  being 
exploited  by  other  rings  of  capitalists  and  finan- 
ciers. A  similar  state  of  afi"airs  obtains  with  iron 
masters  who  manufacture  steel,  own  blast  furnaces, 
run  coal-mines  and  coke  ovens,  make  aniline  dyes 
and  fertilisers,  and  carry  on  a  multitude  of  trades, 
thus  proving  the  ramifications  of  modern  indus- 
trial enterprise  and  its  unquenchable  thirst  to 
dominate  the  world's  markets. 

Intelligent  workers,  long  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  knew  that  war  and  the  possibilities  of 
war  threatened  us  as  a  result  of  international 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

capital  and  finance.  Money  invested  in  the 
Deutsclie  Bank  by  the  German  capitalists  sought 
to  obtain  favourable  terms  for  investment  in  the 
Berlin-Bagdad  Railway  through  the  Balkan  corri- 
dor to  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  schemes  thus 
advanced,  together  with  the  schemes  of  the 
Austrian  capitalists,  cut  across  the  policy  of  the 
Russian  Government  supported  by  the  French 
capitalists,  who  wanted  to  control  the  Balkan 
Peninsula  as  their  field  for  investment  and  exploi- 
tation. British  ship-owning  capitalists  observed 
with  feelings  of  envy  the  development  of  Ger- 
many's overseas  trade.  The  war  was  not  the 
result  of  the  clash  in  2;  of  rival  militarisms  and 
navalisms,  but  rival  capitalisms  struggling  and 
striving  for  the  domination  of  the  undeveloped 
and  under-developed  parts  of  the  earth. 

The  workman  who  dimly  and  vaguely  under- 
stood that  a  system  which  took  from  him  two- 
thirds  of  the  wealth  which  his  labour  produces 
in  the  form  of  rent,  interest  and  profit,  provided 
for  a  sated,  owning  and  controlling  class,  who 
could  not  themselves  consume  this  surplus  value, 
and  were  always  groping  and  questing  for  pro- 
fitable and  remunerative  outlets  for  it,  began 
also  to  realise  that  unless  the  system  was 
changed,  he  could  make  no  progress  in  his  class 
standard. 


22    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

A  Ruskin  or  a  Morris  might  have  hoped  that 
capitalism  would  take  a  beneficial  turn  and 
attempt  to  reorganise  industry  and  to  beautify 
our  industrial  districts  with  the  aid  of  the  teem- 
ing w^ealth  which  modern  industry  placed  at  its 
disposal,  but  the  very  nature  of  world  finance 
and  w^orld  capital  makes  it  inevitable  that  all 
those  within  its  grip  shall  be  creatures  rather 
than  creators  of  their  own  system.  A  Quaker 
family  might  seek  to  improve  conditions  in  its 
cocoa  factories  while  preaching  international 
Peace,  and  at  the  same  time  put  its  financial 
reserves  at  the  disposal  of  a  banking  corporation 
— which  in  its  turn  sent  missionaries  with  the 
Bible  and  liberal  supplies  of  gin  and  subsidised 
apostles  of  "  Empire,"  like  Cecil  Rhodes,  Doctor 
Jameson,  and  that  kind  of  "pioneer" — and  thus 
be  as  responsible  for  bringing  about  a  World  War 
as  any  set  of  international  exploiters  without  any 
qualms  or  misgivings. 

All  of  these  things  were  known  to  tens  of 
thousands  before  the  war,  but  there  had  not 
been  the  clear  demonstration  of  commercialism 
and  militarism  which  has  been  made  evident 
since  August  1914.  Trade  unionism  on  a  craft 
basis  was  doomed  before  the  outbreak  of  war,  and 
was  giving  way  to  various  and  manifold  efi'orts 
to  institute  some  form  of  industrial  unionism. 


INTRODUCTORY  23 


It  will  be  remembered  that  the  National  Union 
of  Eailwaymen  was  formed  by  the  amalgamation 
of  three  Unions  involved  in  the  great  railway 
strike  of  1911.  The  total  membership  of  the 
three  Unions  which  formed  the  nucleus  of  the 
then  existing  N.U.R.  was  less  than  150,000,  but 
in  consequence  of  the  changed  policy  forced  upon 
them  by  economic  and  material  considerations, 
the  membership  has  been  increased  to  something 
like  the  round  half-million.  The  Transport 
Workers'  Federation  includes  an  equal  number 
in  the  membership  of  its  thirty-six  affiliated 
Unions.  Speaking  of  the  old  Austro-Hungarian 
Empire,  someone  once  said  that  so  economically 
interdependent  were  the  peoples  that  formed 
that  Empire,  that  if  there  were  no  Austro-Hun- 
garian Empire,  one  would  have  to  be  formed,  in 
order  to  maintain  the  peace  of  Eastern  Europe. 
Something  similar  can  be  truthfully  said  about 
the  Transport  Workers'  Federation.  So  much 
depends  upon  solidarity  of  men  employed  in 
coastal  and  overseas  transport,  in  dock,  harbour 
and  riverside  labour,  in  commercial  goods  and 
passenger  road  transport,  and  on  and  about  the 
canals  of  the  country,  that  had  no  actual  Associa- 
tion existed,  one  would  have  had  to  be  formed, 
because  of  the  pressing  needs  of  transport  workers 
for  more  effective  organisation,  co-ordination  and 


24    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

mutual  support  enjoined  upon  them  by  present- 
day  capitalist  requirements. 

The  Triple  Alliance  of  Miners,  Railwaymen 
and  Transport  Workers  was  formed,  not  because 
of  the  militancy  or  far-sightedness  of  any  number 
of  professional  agitators  or  Labour  Leaders,  but 
because  of  the  constraint  imposed  upon  the  con- 
stituent bodies  composing  the  Alliance  in  conse- 
quence of  their  chequered  experiences  in  1911 
and  1912,  The  Transport  Workers'  Federation 
and  its  constituent  Unions  used  to  grope  about 
in  a  vicious  circle,  attempting  to  improve  condi- 
tions, especially  of  seamen  and  dock  and  water- 
side workers,  going  around  from  port  to  port 
and  constantly  being  reproved  by  the  employers 
for  attempting  to  impose  conditions  at,  say, 
Liverpool,  which  were  not  imposed  in  Glasgow 
and  London.  At  other  times  it  was  accused  of 
seeking  to  impose  conditions  on  Glasgow  which 
were  not  imposed  on  Hull  and  Bristol.  In  the 
event  of  a  dispute  taking  place  at  one  port,  the 
power  of  the  men's  organisation  was  broken  by 
reason  of  the  diversion  of  ships  and  cargoes  to 
other  ports,  and  the  use  of  one  set  of  trade 
unionists  to  destroy  the  aims  and  aspirations  of 
another.  So  glaring  were  the  defects  of  this 
system,  and  so  powerful  was  the  Shipping  Federa- 
tion in  resisting  the  demands  of  the  seafaring 


INTRODUCTORY  25 

workers,  as  well  as  the  dock  workers,  that  the 
Transport  Workers'  Federation  determined  to 
extend  local  and  district  grouping  to  some  form 
of  national  organisation,  thereby  creating  some 
semblance  of  solidarity.  But  even  with  national 
solidarity  it  was  found  that  the  labour  of  organised 
trade  unionists  in  the  railway  service  was  used 
to  counteract  the  effects  of  a  transport  strike, 
just  as  by  diversion  of  traflQc,  transport  labour 
could  be  used  to  defeat  a  railway  strike.  In  the 
year  1912,  when  the  Miners'  Federation  made 
such  heroic  efforts  to  establish  the  principle  of 
the  minimum  wage,  their  strike  of  eight  weeks 
was  not  so  successful  as  the  promoters  hoped, 
because  of  the  fact  that  railwaymen  and  transport 
workers  conveyed  the  reserves  of  coal  which  had 
been  accumulated  by  the  employing  class,  and 
allowed  the  capitalist  to  eke  out  the  coal  reserves 
sufficiently  long  to  starve  the  mine-workers  into 
a  state  of  partial  submission.  Before  the  war, 
every  strike,  great  or  small,  was  destroyed,  not 
by  the  power  and  resourcefulness  of  the  employers' 
organisations,  but  by  the  defective  organisation 
and  the  lack  of  broad  conceptions  of  policy  among 
trade  unionists  themselves. 

The  systematic  attempt  to  extend  trade  union 
organisation  has  certainly  not  been  confined  to 
the  organisations  mentioned  above.     The  Ship- 


26    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

building  and  Engineering  Trades'  Federation  is 
an  attempt  to  organise  the  multifarious  grades 
and  sections  organised  in  a  large  number  of 
separate  Unions  involved  in  those  trades.  They, 
too,  realise  that  the  employers  will  refrain  from 
no  efforts,  costly  as  they  may  be,  to  resist  the  well- 
conceived  and  moderate  demands  of  their  work- 
people. Although  it  is  not  generally  accepted 
by  the  overwhelming  mass,  the  active  minority 
who  influence  the  inert  mass  as  yeast  leavens 
bread,  boldly  claim  to-day,  as  they  have  to  a 
lesser  degree  for  many  years  since,  that  an  injury 
to  one  trade  union  is  an  injury  to  the  whole 
trade  union  movement,  and  that  a  calculated 
injury  to  one  trade  unionist  is  an  injury  to  the 
trade  union  of  which  he  is  a  member. 

In  this  Introductory  Chapter  one  has  been  com- 
pelled to  give  here  but  a  fragmentary  outline  of 
what  for  its  full  elucidation  would  require  a  huge 
volume  with  quotations,  extracts  and  statistics 
fully  to  elucidate  the  facts.  The  sort  of  synopsis 
which  has  been  set  out  may  be  likened  to  the 
old  cinema  films  in  the  early  development  of  the 
screen  drama.  The  outline  will  be  here  and 
there  blurred  and  indistinct ;  possibly  pieced 
together  again  and  again,  but  trying  to  show  as 
graphically  as  opportunity  will  permit,  how  and 
to  what  extent  the  labour  outlook  and  the  point 


INTRODUCTORY  27 


of  view  of  organised  labour  have  been  changed 
under  the  duress  of  economic  and  industrial 
development.  Those  of  us  who  have  been  thrown 
into  positions  of  greater  or  lesser  responsibility 
or  prominence,  laugh  to  ourselves  when  w^e  are 
described  as  "extremists"  and  "paid  agitators." 
We  realise  full  well  that  we  are  merely  the 
voices  by  which  the  inarticulate  mass  are  able 
more  or  less  adequately  to  express  themselves. 
I  am  reminded  that  responsibility  makes  for 
hesitancy  and  moderation  when  I  recall  tw^o 
colleagues  with  whom  I  was  personally  associated 
during  the  early  years  of  my  connection  with  the 
Transport  Workers'  Federation:  Mr  J.  Keir  Hardie 
and  Mr  Ben  Tillett.  Tillett,  being  the  Secretary 
of  the  Dockers'  Union,  was,  if  I  may  say  so, 
cautious  to  the  last  degree  in  regard  to  his  trade 
union  work.  He  rarely  advocated  strikes,  being 
— as  is  well  known — a  prominent  advocate  of 
compulsory  arbitration.  Knowing  as  he  did  the 
suffering  entailed  upon  those  w^ho  took  part  in 
a  long-drawn-out  dispute, -and  mindful  of  the 
responsibility  he  held,  he  countenanced  a  stoppage 
of  work  only  with  extreme  reluctance  and  as  a 
last  resort.  Once  a  strike  w^as  declared  he  was, 
as  might  be  expected,  a  resolute  protagonist  for 
his  own  side.  In  politics,  however,  Tillett  was 
an  uncompromising  revolutionary  Socialist,  and 


28    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 


I  remember  that  at  the  Labour  Party  Conference 
held  at  Portsmouth,  Tillett  circulated  a  pamphlet 
entitled  "  Is  the  Labour  Party  a  Failure  ?  "  im- 
peaching the  members  of  the  Labour  Party  for 
their  cowardliness  in  failing  to  champion  more 
vehemently  the  cause  of  the  workers  on  the  floor 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  fought  many 
Elections,  and  showed  that,  whatever  responsi- 
bility weighed  him  down  in  his  capacity  as  an 
industrial  organiser,  he  refused  to  be  weighed 
down  by  any  responsibility  as  a  Socialist  advocate 
and  as  an  avowed  revolutionar}'-  in  all  his  earlier 
political  work  and  effort. 

Keir  Hardie,  on  the  other  hand,  had  political 
responsibility.  He  was  largely  if  not  mainly  re- 
sponsible for  the  steps  which  ultimately  brought 
into  being  the  old  Labour  Eepresentation  Com- 
mittee, now  the  Labour  Party.  Hardie  could 
always  find  reasons  to  justify  hesitancy  and 
alleged  recreancy  in  the  Labour  Party,  but, 
having  no  industrial  responsibility  whatsoever 
since  his  dissociation  from  the  Scottish  Miners' 
Association,  Hardie  could  always  be  found  loudly 
championing  the  cause  of  a  general  strike  against 
war  and  any  effective  strike  action  which  would 
improve  workshop  and  factory  conditions.  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  as  one  who  has 
both  political  and  industrial  responsibility,  that 


INTRODUCTORY  29 

there  is  need  for  more  militancy  both  on  the 
political  and  industrial  field.  Compared  with 
the  active  and  rebellious  members  of  our  rank 
and  file,  Tom  Mann,  Smillie,  myself  and  others 
may  be  looked  upon  as  rather  moderate,  cautious 
individuals,  cautious,  however,  in  consequence 
of  general  conditions  over  which  we  have  little 
or  no  control. 

Having  briefly  sketched  the  causes  of  the 
changed  outlook  in  the  Labour  Movement,  I 
must  gradually  approach  the  new  outlook,  and 
indicate  as  well  as  I  can  what  that  changed  out- 
look suggests,  and  submit  the  broad  lines  of 
policy  which  will  probably  be  followed  not  only 
in  Great  Britain  but  in  all  parts  of  the  world  in 
consequence  of  the  changes  made  inevitable  by 
industrial  and  economic  development,  and  accele- 
rated by  war  and  post-war  conditions. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Older  Outlook. 

Within  the  compass  of  a  book  of  this  character 
there  will  be  no  room  for  anything  approaching 
a  ponderous  historical  survey  of  the  rise  and 
growth  of  the  Labour  Movement.  Nor  has  the 
writer  any  intention  of  wearying  the  eye  and 
irritating  the  mind  of  the  reader  by  pedantic 
foot-notes  :  where  quotations  are  used,  they  will 
follow  from  the  text.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
students  who  desire  to  obtain  detailed  and  pre- 
cise knowledge  of  the  changes  in  working-class 
outlook  have  a  fairly  comprehensive  and  increas- 
ing literature  already  at  their  disposal. 

The  outlook  of  the  militant  section  of  the 
working  class  before  the  war  was  an  embittered 
outlook,  which,  in  particular,  resented  the  manner 
of  distribution  of  the  national  wealth.  One  did 
not  require  to  burrow  deeply  into  learned  and 
abstract  economic  treatises  to  discover  that 
those  who  worked  the  hardest  got  the  least, 
while  those  who  rendered  no  socially  useful 
services   whatsoever   received  most ;    such  was 

80 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  31 

painfully  evident  to  all  those  who  had  eyes  to 
see.  While  Free  Traders  and  Tariff  Reformers 
were  wrangling  over  fiscal  policies,  showing  how 
the  national  income  was  derived,  militant  Labour 
said  in  effect :  '"A  plague  on  both  your  houses,' 
we  are  cheated  of  the  wealth  produced  by  our 
collective  labour  all  the  time  !  " 

History  proclaimed  that  practically  all  pro- 
perty consisted  of  the  accumulated  theft,  by  the 
existing  owners  and  their  precursors,  from  the 
toiling  masses  who  had  built  up  Britain's  com- 
mercial prosperity.  "  Wealth  is  the  reward  of 
abstinence,"  said  the  prating  apologists  of  the 
capitalist  system,  content  to  accept  the  crumbs 
which  fell  from  their  paymasters'  tables.  "  Very 
well,"  replied  Socialist  proletarians;  "  we  and  ours 
have  been  abstemious  to  the  point  of  poverty 
and  destitution ;  we  are  sprung  from  the  loins 
of  those  who  have  rendered  the  desolate  and 
waste  places  of  our  own  country  habitable  and 
fertile ;  we,  and  those  who  have  preceded  us, 
have  built  with  our  blood,  bones  and  tissue  the 
foundation  and  superstructure  of  present-day 
industrialism ;  our  women-folk  and  children 
have  toiled  in  the  mines  in  order  to  create  the 
prosperity  of  coal-owners  and  iron  and  steel 
masters  ;  infants  of  eight  years  of  age  have  been 
chained  to  the  textile  looms  for  fifteen  hours  a 


32    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

day,  their  little  eyes  kept  open  by  the  whip  of 
the  overlooker  in  the  fetid  atmosphere  of  the 
weaving  shed,  in  order  that  Lancashire's  trade 
shall  follow  Britain's  Flag.  Look  where  you  may, 
on  every  side  you  may  find  convincing  evidence 
that  it  is  the  common  people  who  have  been 
industrious  and  thrifty,  while  those  for  whom  it 
is  claimed  that  their  present  possessions  are  the 
reward  of  abstinence  have  enjoyed  abounding 
luxury,  even  to  the  point  of  satiety." 

For  generations  before  the  war  the  workers  were 
confronted  with  the  contradiction  of  abounding 
material  prosperity,  shown  by  exports,  imports, 
revenue  from  Income  Tax,  and  all  the  outward 
evidences  of  such  well-being — at  a  time  when 
there  were  recurring  industrial  crises,  widespread 
unemployment,  poverty  and  destitution  among 
large  sections  of  the  mass  of  the  working  people. 
Wealth  production  and  distribution  had  become 
a  social  process,  allowing  accumulations  of  wealth 
to  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  propertied  classes. 
Idealists  had  hoped  for  centuries  that  once  man- 
kind had  solved  the  problem  of  production,  equity 
in  distribution  would  follow  as  a  natural  conse- 
quence. The  worker,  being  taught  in  the  harsh 
school  of  practical  experience,  was  compelled  to 
realise  that,  while  the  labour  of  a  single  unit, 
applied   to   the    machinery   of  production   and 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  33 

assisted  by  the  technique  and  science  of  modern 
industry,  could  produce  more  in  a  day  than  his 
grandfather  could  in  a  week,  his  own  position 
was  little,  if  any,  better  than  that  of  his  forbear 
of  two  generations  ago.  During  the  heyday  of 
the  Industrial  Revolution,  w^hen  Britain  was 
making  herself  the  w^orkshop  of  the  world,  it  was 
no  unicjue  spectacle  to  see  the  earlier  capitalists 
making  cent  per  cent  on  their  investments.  The 
workman,  pressing  into  the  towns  from  the 
countryside,  saAv  his  capacity  for  wealth-produc- 
tion being  so  rapidly  enhanced,  that  he  sought 
for  ways  and  means  of  protecting  himself  against 
the  worst  forms  of  competition  between  man  and 
man  for  a  j  ob. 

Bereft  of  anything  approaching  human  decency, 
w^orking  fourteen  or  more  hours  per  day  to  the 
point  of  exhaustion,  suffering  the  unspeakable 
horrors  of  workshop  and  factory  conditions,  living 
upon  a  standard  of  life  which  barely  provided 
for  his  elementary  human  needs,  he  sought  to 
substitute  the  individual  contract  between  him- 
self and  his  employer  by  collective  bargaining 
through  some  form  of  trade  union  combination. 
The  Liberal  politicians  of  the  period,  having 
broken  the  power  of  the  aristocracy,  and  full  of 
their  new-born  economic  power,  resisted  every 
attempt  upon  the  part  of  the  worker  to  secure 

c 


34    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

some  tangible  improvement  in  his  economic 
status.  Factory  legislation  was  resisted  by  the 
Manchester  School  of  Gradgrind  Economists  as 
an  unwarrantable  limitation  of  the  right  of  the 
employer  to  do  what  he  pleased  with  his  own 
property.  Trade  unionism  in  its  initial  stages 
was  unrelentingly  opposed,  and  the  pioneers  of 
the  Trade  Union  Movement,  to  whom  so  much 
credit  is  due  for  their  zeal  and  self-sacrifice,  were, 
upon  discovery,  victimised  and  denied  the  means 
of  obtaining  their  livelihood,  persecuted  and  pro- 
secuted by  law,  and  subjected,  in  cases  too 
numerous  to  mention,  to  deportation  from  the 
land  of  their  birth  like  common  felons.  It  re- 
mained, however,  for  far-sighted  and  apparently 
public-spirited  philanthropists  to  oppose  legally 
the  unrestricted  individualism  of  the  early  half 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  This  unrestricted 
individualism,  if  allowed  to  proceed  with  its 
possibility  of  spreading  disease  and  causing  the 
devitalisation  of  the  human  stock  from  which 
capitalism  derived  its  cent  per  cent  profit,  would 
destroy  not  only  the  morality  but  the  physique 
of  those  who  supplied  the  privileged  classes  with 
their  wherewithal — and  more — upon  which  to 
live.  Efibrts  towards  trade  unionism,  moreover, 
and  the  growing  solidarity  of  the  work-people  in 
their  respective  industries  and  occupations,  were 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  35 

exercising  such  a  growing  pressure  upon  the 
public  mind  that  some  legislative  provisions  had 
to  be  made  for  its  logical  development.  The 
attitude  of  mind  of  the  employing  class  was 
determined  from  time  to  time  by  material  and 
economic  considerations,  as,  in  fact,  was  that  of 
the  worker.  So  moderate  were  the  demands  of 
the  trade  unionists  that  the  employers  withdrew 
eventually  much  of  their  opposition. 

We  see  that  Cobden,  himself,  the  arch-apostle 
of  utilitarian  economics,  was  an  advocate  of 
Peace,  Eetrenchment  and  Reform,  understanding 
that  foreign  wars  interrupted  the  trading  oppor- 
tunities of  Lancashire,  and  its  sale  of  cotton  in 
the  world  market.  While  preaching  peace,  he 
continued  to  advocate  a  big  navy,  in  order  to 
protect  the  mercantile  marine,  and  thus  secure 
that  continuity  of  trade  and  commerce  upon 
which  his  own  and  his  confreres'  interests  de- 
pended. The  growth  of  capitalist  industry  went 
forward  at  a  tremendous  pace,  and,  as  has  already 
been  shown  in  the  Introductory  Chapter,  the 
workman  was  constrained  to  look  for  some  form 
of  mutual  protection  in  his  trades'  combinations. 
He  understood,  more  by  intuition  or  instinct 
than  by  reason,  that  he  was  poor  because  his 
employer  was  rich ;  and  his  employer  was  rich 
because  he  was  poor.      It  was  as  Tolstoy  has 


36    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

said  :  "  The  rich  will  do  anything  for  the  poor 
except  get  off  their  backs."  It  must  not  be 
imagined  for  a  moment  that  the  working-class  of 
that  time  had  any  ambition  to  thrust  the  rich 
from  the  backs  of  the  poor — they  merely  wished 
to  lighten  the  intolerable  load  with  which  they 
were  burdened.  Statisticians  have  computed 
that  for  every  £1  worth  of  wealth  produced  by 
human  labour,  5s.  went  into  the  pockets  of  the 
productive  classes  in  the  form  of  wages,  while 
15s.  found  its  way  into  the  pockets  of  the  re- 
cipients of  rent,  interest  and  profit. 

The  earlier  struggles  of  those  who  did  the 
pioneer  work  in  the  Trade  Union  Movement 
should  be  an  encouragement  to  those  of  us  who 
in  these  days  enjoy  opportunities  few,  if  any,  of 
them  possessed.  They,  certainly,  were  deemed 
to  be  extremists,  and  the  propertied  classes  feared 
blindly  for  their  own  interests  if  trade  union 
combination  were  allowed  to  continue  unchecked 
and  unchallenged.  The  fact  remains,  that  in 
every  period  and  in  every  country  the  privileged 
and  propertied  classes,  while  prating  of  patriotism 
and  of  progress,  have  not  only  not  assisted  in  the 
development  of  progressive  institutions,  but  have 
bitterly  and  unrelentingly  opposed  their  growth. 
Small  wonder  was  it  that  the  majority  of  the 
workers  remained  in  a  condition  of  almost  abject 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  37 

despair.  The  lethargy  of  the  people  was  to  be 
deplored  even  more  than  the  resistance  of  the 
master-class  ;  but  slowly  and  inexorably  there 
came  the  pressure  of  not  only  nation-wide  but 
world-wide  capitalist  development.  So  generous 
were  the  workers  to  their  employers  in  allowing 
them  three-fourths  of  the  total  wealth  which 
their  labour  produced,  that  try  as  the  exploiters 
might,  sate  themselves  with  whatever  luxury 
they  would,  be  their  lives  never  so  splendid  and 
affluential,  they  could  not  possibly  absorb  this 
abounding  wealth  upon  their  own  desires.  Now 
is  offered  an  outlet,  even  more  tempting  and 
remunerative,  by  foreign  investments  in  the  un- 
developed and  partially  developed  parts  of  the 
world. 

It  is  not  as  though  an  outlet  could  not  be  found 
in  the  Black  Country,  in  Lancashire,  in  Lanark- 
shire, Ayrshire,  Glamorgan  or  in  Monmouthshire, 
for  this  surplus  value,  vouchsafed  to  them  by  the 
workers'  apathy  and  indifference,  but  money  in- 
vested in  Egypt,  India,  South  America  and  the 
Colonies  provided  more  satisfactory  returns  than 
investments  in  house  property  and  the  demolition 
of  slums  and  insanitary  hovels  throughout  Great 
Britain  as  a  prelude  to  adequate  house  construc- 
tion. With  the  struggle  for  conquest  of  the 
world's  markets  we  get  our  frequently  recurring 

14  4340 


38    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

industrial  crises,  and  their  consequent  unemploy- 
ment and  under-employment  on  a  tremendous 
scale.  The  machine  influence,  which  should  have 
brightened  the  lives  of  the  workers  and  lightened 
their  load,  was  itself  a  cause  of  disaster  and  dis- 
may to  the  unorganised  and  partially  organised 
masses  of  urban  labourers. 

A  detached  spirit  from  another  world,  making 
an  impartial  investigation  into  economic  affairs 
on  this  planet,  would  have  been  impressed  by  the 
apparent  contradiction  in  things.  It  would  be 
thought  that  with  our  mercantile  marine  carrying 
millions  of  tons  per  year,  with  the  ocean-going 
steamer,  luxuriously  appointed,  superseding  the 
old  wind-propelled  sailing  vessel,  with  the  great 
industry  and  commerce,  producing  wealth  beyond 
the  dreams  of  avarice,  with  the  construction  of 
palatial  buildings  in  our  modern  cities — hotels, 
banks,  counting-houses,  insurance  offices,  great 
distributive  stores — with  the  streets  splendidly 
lighted  and  substantially  paved,  with  the  erection 
of  universities,  libraries,  museums,  art  galleries, 
theatres  and  opera-houses,  the  era  of  material 
poverty  would  be  at  an  end.  But  the  spirit  from 
another  world  would  have  been  perplexed  beyond 
words  upon  realisation  of  the  harsh  and  unpala- 
table truth  that  with  the  advance  in  material 
prosperity,   we    were   confronted  with   poverty 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  39 

and  destitution  relatively  without  parallel  in  the 
history  of  the  world.     With  the   palatial  resi- 
dences, we  have  slums  and  hovels  ;  with  the  mag- 
nificent hotels,  we  have  the  stand-up  gin  palaces 
and  whisky  saloons  ;  with  the  library,  university 
and  museum,   we   have    the    gaol,   work-house, 
doss-house  and  penitentiary;  with  the  luxuriously 
appointed  motor-car,  with  its  splendidly  attired 
chauffeur,  and  the  well-projDortioned  police  officer, 
directing    the    traffic,    we    have    procurers    and 
prostitutes,  and  young  children   and  grown-up 
human  derelicts  eagerly  earning  a  few  pence  by  the 
sale  of  matches  and  newspapers  on  our  modern 
thoroughfares.     Whilst  being  a  nation  that  could 
engage    upon    an    imperialist    war    and    spend 
£250,000,000  in   order  to    serve    the    economic 
interests  of  the  gold  bugs  of  the  Eand,  we  find 
ourselves  unable  as  a  State  to  guarantee  that 
every  able-bodied  man  and  woman  shall  be  pro- 
vided with  either  work  or  maintenance. 

This,  it  can  therefore  be  asserted,  was  the  school 
in  which  militant  labour  mentality  was  being- 
formed  long  before  the  outbreak  of  the  World 
War. 

The  fact  remains,  and  has  not  been  shaken 
by  the  experiences  of  the  World  War ;  the  gap 
between  the  rich  and  the  poor  grows  continu- 
ally wider. 


40    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

The  problem  of  wealth  production  has  been 
more  than  solved,  Kropotkin  and  others  having 
shown  during  the  latter  portion  of  the  last  cen- 
tury that  if  the  means  of  production  then  in 
operation  were  only  eflfectively  and  rationally 
organised,  there  could  be  assured  for  every  family 
of  five  a  standard  of  life  procurable  by  £1  per 
day,  at  the  then  purchasing  value  of  money  ;  and 
to  do  this  it  would  be  essential  to  employ  only 
the  healthy  adults  between  the  ages  of  eighteen 
and  fifty.  Demagogues  there  were  in  consider- 
able numbers,  who  ofi"ered  various  remedies  for 
the  manifest  ills  under  which  the  major  portion 
of  the  community  was  labouring.  The  present 
Prime  Minister  was  all  too  fond  of  bidding  for 
popular  support  by  vote-catching  phrases,  such 
as  that  of  "  robbing  the  hen-roosts  "  of  the  land- 
owning fraternity.  With  the  circumscribed  out- 
look of  the  little  country  attorney,  he  and  his 
like  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  realise  the  com- 
plications of  the  modern  commercial  system, 
based  upon  individual  greed  and  personal  cupid- 
ity. Socialists,  realising  the  facts  and  implica- 
tions of  modern  industry,  were  far  too  wise  to 
advocate  robbing  the  hen-roosts,  or  any  other  form 
of  robbery.  They  were  not  thieves  and  burglars 
practising  or  advocating  theft,  but  constituted 
themselves  into  a  judiciary,  advocating  restitu- 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  41 

tion  to  those  who  had  suffered  under  an  age- 
long system  of  spoliation  and  robbery.  Socialists 
desired,  not  to  rob  the  rich  to  give  to  the  poor — 
as  exemplars  of  Robin  Hood — but,  on  the  other 
hand,  proclaimed  steadfastly  in  favour  of  a  system 
which  would  prevent  the  rich  from  robbing  the 
poor. 

Mallock,  and  his  kind,  hearing  the  rumblings 
of  industrial  revolt  and  insurrection,  defended 
the  system  of  capitalism  by  saying  that  rent, 
interest  and  profit  were  the  outcome  of  superior 
brains  and  the  result  of  the  possession  of  directive 
ability.  A  brief  glance  at  the  facts  will  show  that 
all  this  is  mere  claptrap  :  the  history  of  the 
inventors  of  the  last  century  is  one  long  story  of 
their  exploitation  by  the  capitalists.  Inventions 
requiring  diligent  thought  and  study,  necessitat- 
ing outlay  on  materials,  involved  the  inventor  in 
serious  financial  loss ;  and  in  nearly  every  case 
the  results  of  the  benefits  accruing  from  the 
invention  went  to  the  great  employer,  who  could 
afford  to  buy  up  the  brains  of  the  inventor, 
rather  than  to  the  inventor  himself.  It  is  w^ell 
known  that  great  commercial  establishments, 
both  in  Europe  and  America,  make  it  a  condition 
of  employment  that  any  of  their  workmen  design- 
ing an  improvement  to  a  machine,  or  introducing 
some  advantageous  change  in  a  process,  shall  give 


42    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

an  undertaking,  and  sign  such  undertaking  with 
his  employer,  to  the  effect  that  he  shall  forgo 
the  right  to  any  of  the  results  of  his  inventive 
ingenuity.  Brains  are,  therefore,  bought  up  as 
easily  by  the  great  commercialists  and  industri- 
alists as  labour  of  hand  and  muscle  is  bought  at 
the  bare  cost  of  subsistence  of  the  labourer. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  who  have  derived 
vast  incomes  from  land  and  capital  have,  in  the 
main,  proved  themselves  rather  dull  and  unin- 
telligent, and  have  relied  much  more  upon  the 
capacity  for  organisation  on  the  part  of  their 
captains  and  lieutenants  of  industry,  and  their 
stewards  of  land,  than  from  any  mother-wit  or 
capacity  of  their  own.  Politicians  and  statesmen 
who  have  prided  themselves  upon  their  capacity 
to  govern  have  only  to  be  met  in  order  to  expose 
their  inefficiency  as  governors  and  administrators, 
their  outstanding  ability  being  that  of  vote- 
catching  dexterity,  and  the  willingness  to  serve 
and  subserve  their  capitalist  and  landlord  pay- 
masters. 

Ferdinand  Lassalle  once  stated  that  modern 
Society  consists  of  96  per  cent,  of  proletarians 
and  4  per  cent,  of  capitalists.  The  facts  have 
been  somewhat  altered  since  the  period  in  which 
he  wrote,  because  the  number  of  proletarians  has 
proportionately  rapidly  dwindled,  and  between 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  43 

the  4  per  cent,  of  the  capitalists  and  the  60  or 
70  per  cent,  of  proletarians  there  now  stands 
as  an  intermediary  buffer  class  the  flunkey  and 
apologist  tribe,  who  live  by  the  grace  of  the 
lords  of  land  and  industrial  capital. 

There  is  no  gainsaying  the  fact  that  while  the 
evils  and  anomalies  of  the  private  ownership  of 
land  and  capital  were  visible  to  every  discerning 
eye  and  mind,  the  broad  mass  of  the  people 
appeared  to  accept  as  an  unchangeable  system 
that  which  had  its  birth  in  this  country  at  the 
commencementof  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Rest- 
less and  energetic  proletarians  sought  for  various 
ways  and  means  of  modifying  if  not  superseding 
the  system  which,  to  them,  was  almost  intolerable. 
The  Co-operative  Movement  of  the  Rochdale 
pioneers  and  others  was  based  upon  opposition 
to  the  sweating,  adulteration  and  double-dealing 
inseparable  from  the  capitalist  system,  and  it 
was  held  earnestly  and  confidently  that  if  the 
workers  w^ere  to  divert  the  spending  powder  of 
the  wages  they  obtained  to  co-operative  trading 
and  co-operative  production,  this  would,  of  itself, 
show  us  the  road  to  the  millennium.  But  after 
more  than  half  a  century  of  fairly  well- organised 
and  well-directed  co-operative  effort,  as  the  tail 
of  the  Co-operative  Movement  grows  to  greater 
and  greater  dimensions,  it  fails  almost  completely 


44    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 


to  wag  the  steadily-growing  capitalist  dog,  or 
drastically  to  change  the  conditions  of  its  vast 
membership. 

Concurrently  with  the  growth  of  the  Trade 
Union  Movement  efforts  were  made  to  promote 
direct  working-class  representation  on  publicly 
elected  bodies,  and  we  find,  even  before  the  forma- 
tion of  the  old  Labour  Representation  Committee, 
which  was  first  established  in  1900,  the  mine- 
workers  in  the  various  mining  constituencies, 
together  with  other  trades,  had  succeeded  in 
returning  their  own  working-class  nominees  to 
the  British  House  of  Commons.  They  were,  in 
the  main,  elected  as  Liberal  Labour  members, 
and  in  many  cases  their  policy  was  no  different 
from  that  of  ordinary  Radicals  in  the  House.  A 
significant  fact  attaches  itself  to  the  pioneer 
work  of  the  mine-workers'  organisations  in  this 
direction.  The  constituencies  which  these  Liberal 
Labour  members  represented  were  chiefly,  and  in 
some  cases  almost  entirely,  mining  in  character ; 
and  in  pursuance  of  the  theory  of  the  Economic 
Interpretation  of  History,  this  can  be  readily 
understood. 

There  is  no  industry  in  the  world  where  the 
underlying  solidarity  of  the  workers  is  more 
marked  than  in  the  mining  industry.  The  mine- 
workers  in  a  particular  pit  have  to  descend  and 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  45 

ascend  the  same  pit-shaft,  and  a  mass-psychology 
is  thus  superimposed  upon  a  human  solidarity, 
which  precedes  and  even  transcends  the  class 
solidarity  of  those  workers.  In  the  gloom  of 
the  underworld  each  man's  safety  is  dependent 
largely  upon  the  caution  and  mutual  support  of 
every  other  man  :  the  fall  of  a  roof  in  consequence 
of  faulty  timbering  ;  the  flooding  of  a  working  ; 
an  explosion — the  effects  of  after-damp  ;  or  one 
of  the  other  numerous  perils  which  beset  the 
lives  of  the  mine-workers,  render  it  absolutely 
essential  that  rescue  work  should  be  undertaken 
instantly  by  the  comrades  who  have  escaped 
injury.  There  has  thus  been  created  a  spirit 
of  human  fellowship,  which  preceded  the  later 
manifestation  of  class  solidarity,  amongst  them- 
selves and  their  fellow-workers  in  other  industries. 
Paid  upon  output  and  by  piece  rates,  as  the  mine- 
workers  were — and  largely  are  at  the  present 
time — there  arose  frequent  disputes  because 
of  the  charges,  too  often  substantiated,  that  the 
mine-owner  and  his  manager  were  cheating 
the  workmen  of  the  results  of  their  labour  upon 
the  piece-work  scale  of  payments;  and  after  con- 
siderable agitation  it  was  rendered  necessary  for 
check-weighmen  to  be  appointed  at  every  pit,  in 
order  to  ensure  that  the  men  at  the  coal-face 
should  receive  all  to  which  they  were  legitimately 


46    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

entitled,  in  accord  with  the  terms  decided  upon 
between  the  unions  and  the  employers.  The 
mine-worker  being  an  intelligent  individual  asked 
himself  why,  having  failed  to  repose  any  con- 
fidence in  the  mine-owner  and  the  mine  manager 
at  the  pit-head,  he  should  continue  to  repose 
confidence  in  either  of  them  to  represent  him  and 
his  interests  at  St  Stephen's,  Westminster,  and  so 
we  find  that  the  miners  were  the  first  to  promote 
direct  working-class  representation,  although  at 
that  stage  the  miners'  nominees  called  themselves 
Liberal  Labour  members.  Keir  Hardie — himself 
an  ex-miner  —  was  the  most  outstanding  figure 
in  the  British  working-class  movement  in  the 
demand  for  independent  Labour  representation  in 
Parliament  and  on  other  publicly- elected  bodies. 
A  conflict  raged  subsequently  between  the 
schools  of  "  industrials  "  and  "  politicals  "  regard- 
ing the  use  of  the  trade  unions  exclusively  for 
one  or  the  other  purpose.  There  was  that  school 
which  said  that  politics  should  not  be  introduced 
into  the  trade  unions,  and  which  declared  that 
the  trade  unions  should  be  maintained  purely 
and  simply  for  the  purpose  for  which  they  were 
formed,  namely,  to  discover  and  rectify  industrial 
grievances.  With  the  growth  of  the  political 
school  there  was  a  tendency  to  make  the  unions 
mere  instruments  for  returning  Labour  members 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  47 

to  the  House  of  Commons,  and  this  school  urged 
that  strike  action  was  played  out,  and  should 
be  substituted  by  political  and  parliamentary 
activity.  For  at  least  twenty  years  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  a  fierce  struggle  was  main- 
tained in  the  Labour  Mo.vement  between  the 
exponents  and  advocates  of  these  two  rival  schools 
of  thought,  and  now  and  again  the  Movement 
swayed  in  favour  of  one  policy  and  then  the 
other,  "  Strikes  are  hopeless  and  are  played  out 
in  view  of  the  vast  concentration  of  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  capitalist  class,"  said  the  advocates 
of  parliamentary  action;  "strikes  are  costly  to 
those  who  engage  in  them,  and  especially  to  their 
dependents  ;  they  are  barbarous  means  of  settling 
disputes,  and  even  when  they  temporarily  succeed, 
the  losses  are  greater  to  the  working-class  pro- 
ducers than  the  gains  which  are  realised  in  increase 
of  wages  or  reduction  in  hours.  Conduct,  there- 
fore, an  unceasing  propaganda  in  favour  of  direct 
working-class  representation  ;  and  the  social 
system  under  which  you  suffer  can  be  drastically 
ameliorated  by  legislative  measures  and  by  the 
results  of  political  action  in  general."  "  Parlia- 
mentary action  solves  nothing,"  loudly  proclaim 
the  industrial  direct-actionists.  "  You  send  your 
nominees  to  the  green  benches  of  Westminster, 
and  they  become  corrupted  by  association  with 


48    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

the  master  class.  Those  who  set  out  upon  a 
campaign  of  vote-catching  have  to  make  their 
views  so  amenable  to  the  middle-class  voters, 
that  they  are  rendered  impotent  by  reason  of  the 
speeches  of  their  election  campaign  before  they 
reach  St  Stephen's.  Moreover,  to  whom  do  you 
offer  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  ?  It  is 
to  the  veterans  of  the  Industrial  Movement,  who 
have,  perchance,  grown  grey  in  the  Movement, 
or  who  have  lost  their  militant  characteristics  by 
a  decade  or  generation  of  work  in  a  trade  union 
office.  Who  are  the  nominees  for  the  suitably 
situated  constituencies,  but  those  who  have 
grown  impotent  in  the  service  of  the  Cause  ? 
Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  are  to  be  elected  to 
Westminster,  not  because  of  any  revolutionary 
work  they  may  accomplish,  but  as  a  reward  for 
services  rendered  in  years  gone  by." 

Popular  education  has  been  limited  to  enable 
the  workers  greedily  to  swallow  the  hashed-up 
nonsense  which  appears  in  the  columns  of  the 
Capitalist  Press.  In  the  factory,  in  the  mine, 
workshop,  or  on  the  docks  or  railways,  your 
proletarian  understands  the  facts  of  his  every- 
day life.  But  in  politics  he  becomes  obsessed 
with  the  interminable  wrangles  of  free  trade  and 
tariff  reform ;  the  single  tax ;  leasehold  enfran- 
chisement ;  big  navies  and  little  navies ;  and  he 
is  carried  away  from  all  the  inherent  realism  of 


THE   OLDER    OUTLOOK  49 

his  everyday  life,  and  is  made  increasingly  help- 
less by  the  loud-mouthed  spokesmen  of  the  two 
rival  factions  which  stand  as  the  custodians  of 
the  interests  of  landlords  and  capitalists.  In 
industrial  affairs  the  active  and  intelligent  pro- 
letarian leavening  of  one  man  in  ten  is  the  deter- 
mining factor.  He  organises  dissension  against 
low  wages  and  long  hours  ;  he  is  the  spirited 
advocate  who  makes  his  influence  felt  on  the  multi- 
tude in  the  great  industries  of  the  country,  and 
nine  out  often  follow  his  lead,  not  so  much  because 
of  any  clearly  defined  and  logical  processes  of 
the  mind,  but  because  of  an  intuitive  or  instinctive 
understandino;  of  the  facts  of  life.  At  the  ballot- 
box  the  vote  of  the  active  proletarian  is  cancelled 
by  the  votes  of  his  own  fellow- workmen,  who 
have  failed  to  translate  the  facts  of  their  every- 
day lives  into  the  region  of  politics,  and  to  show 
an  aptitude  for  parliamentary  or  political  dis- 
crimination, "  and,"  says  the  syndicalist  or  indus- 
trial unionist,  "  our  bounden  duty  is  to  organise 
upon  an  industrial  or  class  basis,  in  order  by  indus- 
trial action  to  overthrow^  the  hateful  capitalist 
system  which  cramps  and  stultifies  our  lives,  and 
denies  us  any  degree  of  real  improvement  in 
social  status."  And  thus  it  is  contended,  each 
side  convinced  it  has  on  its  own  part  the  germs 
of  truth  and  accuracy  regarding  immediate  and 
ultimate  tactics  to  be  employed. 


50    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

There  arose  the  need  for  international  organi- 
sation as  time  went  on,  both  politically  as  well 
as  on  the  industrial  field,  and  International 
Socialist  Congresses  played  at  least  some  part 
in  teaching  the  workers  and  their  leaders  the 
implications  of  international  working-class  soli- 
darity. Capitalism  had  advanced  with  giant 
strides  in  Germany,  America,  and  to  a  lesser 
degree  in  France,  Austria  -  Hungary,  and  in 
Russia,  and  it  was  found  essential  to  eliminate 
the  lowest  conceptions  of  national  antagonisms 
and  fraudulent  patriotisms  by  means  of  inter- 
national conferences  and  congresses.  "  Prole- 
tarians of  all  Countries,  Unite !  You  have 
nothing  to  lose  but  your  chains  :  you  have  a 
world  to  win  ! "  was  the  ringing  appeal  of  Marx 
and  Engels  in  the  "Communist  Manifesto"; 
and  the  propaganda  work  conducted  through 
the  International  Socialist  organisations  had 
the  effect  of  promoting  international  industrial 
organisation.  The  workers  of  one  country  were 
invariably  informed  by  their  employers  that 
workers  in  the  same  industry  in  other  countries 
were  enabling  their  employers  to  compete  on 
more  advantageous  terms,  and,  therefore,  placing 
them  in  the  position  of  being  able  to  secure 
trade  in  the  struggle  for  the  world  market.  The 
workmen  in  the  respective  industries  having  to 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  51 

some  extent  overcome  competitive  influences 
within  the  confines  of  their  own  country,  sought 
more  and  more  to  overcome  international  com- 
petitive influences  ;  and  thus  metal  -  workers, 
wood  -  workers,  transport  -  workers  and  mine- 
workers,  to  mention  but  a  few,  had  their  inter- 
national organisations  supplying  statistics  of 
wages  and  conditions,  fighting  for  the  extension 
of  factory  legislation,  and  seeking  in  every  way 
to  improve  the  status  of  the  working  people 
throughout  the  world. 

Of  course  the  confidence  in  international 
working-class  solidarity  and  belief  in  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  many  quondam  resolutions  passed 
was  severely  shaken  by  the  developments  in 
1914  and  afterwards  ;  but  the  fact  remains  that 
there  were  millions  in  the  belligerent  nations 
who  were  opposed  to  the  war,  who  remained 
steadfast  to  the  underlying  principles  of  the 
class-struggle,  and  whose  bitterest  disappoint- 
ment lay  in  witnessing  the  frantic  zeal  of  the 
so-called  Labour  and  Socialist  "  Leaders,"  who 
became  in  this  and  other  countries  more  royalist 
than  the  King,  more  militarist  than  the  War 
Office,  and  more  imperialistic  than  those  whose 
sentiments  they  repeated  with  parrot  -  like 
reiteration. 

The  Older  Outlook  was  clear  here  and  confused 


52    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

there,  but  was  becoming  appreciably  clearer  as 
the  driving  force  of  economic  and  industrial 
development  was  making  itself  more  and  more 
manifest.  It  is  true  working-class  organisation 
followed  —  much  more  slowly,  perhaps,  but, 
nevertheless,  followed  —  the  concentration  of 
power  of  finance  and  industrial  capital;  the  chief 
obstacle  beino;  the  inherent  conservatism  of  the 
human  mind  as  expressed  through  the  indiffer- 
ence and  hesitancy  of  the  masses  and  the  vested 
interests  of  the  permanent  officials. 

The  supersession  of  craftsmanship  by  the 
operations  of  the  machine  attendant;  the  growth 
of  unemployment ;  the  increasingly  recurrent 
industrial  crises ;  these  taught  inexorably  that 
which  the  vocal  and  literary  propagandists  had 
failed  to  prove.  The  Movement  in  favour  of 
industrial  groupings  and  amalgamation  went  on 
stage  by  stage ;  but  the  effect  w^as  countered 
during  wage  disp'utes  by  the  closer  co-operation 
between  great  industrial  undertakings.  Eeason 
was  baffled  again  and  again,  and  sometimes  the 
hatred  of  the  crushing  system  of  wage  slavery 
was  found  venting  itself  in  forms  of  violence, 
which  were  easily  suppressed  by  the  police  or 
military.  Strikes,  if  accomplishing  nothing 
more,  at  least  drove  home  forcibly  the  lesson 
of  the    class    antagonism  inseparable  from   the 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  53 

capitalist  S3^stem.  They  engendered  mutual 
solidarity,  and  awakened  the  mind  and  heart  to 
the  need  for  a  revolutionary  change;  they  showed 
more  and  more,  too,  the  need  for  political  soli- 
darity as  well  as  industrial  solidarity,  and  offered 
to  Socialist  propagandists  abundant  opportunity 
to  expose  the  hollow  pretence  aifd  blatant  hum- 
bug of  politicians  who  imposed  Insurance  and 
similar  Acts  of  Parliament  with  their  *'  rare 
and  refreshing  fruit." 

During  the  two  decades  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  World  War  millions  of  pamphlets,  brochures 
and  books  were  distributed,  and  there  were  many 
Socialist  and  Labour  periodicals  indicating  and 
proving  the  confrontation  of  rich  and  poor. 

Can  anyone,  who  knows  the  facts  .of  industrial 
history,  doubt,  that  by  means  of  militant  trade 
unionism,  through  the  intensive  revolutionary 
propaganda,  through  the  enlightened  self-interest 
of  the  possessing  classes,  who  know  exactly  when 
to  concede  and  how  much  (and  may  it  be 
parenthetically  observed  that  no  section  of  the 
possessing  classes  is  to  be  compared  with  the 
astute  British  section),  and  by  that  process  of 
gradual  all-round  development,  which  may  be 
likened  not  to  a  vicious  circle,  as  some  foolishly 
imagine,  but  to  a  spiral,  each  revolution  of  which 
brings  us  higher   and    higher,   we   are    rapidly 


54    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

approaching  the  period  of  human  emancipation. 
I,  for  my  own  part,  have  no  hesitation  in 
declaring  that  from  my  own  knowledge  of 
conditions  among  the  working-class,  there  was 
a  distinct  tendency  towards  material  improve- 
ment. Every  reform  was  beaten  out  on  the 
anvil  of  strife ;  no  concession  was  conceded 
except  by  the  pressure  of  force,  or  as  the  result 
of  craven  fear  on  the  part  of  the  privileged  and 
propertied  sections  of  the  community.  The 
active  and  intelligent  among  the  proletarians 
had  no  delusions  about  the  master  class  ;  they 
knew  that  while  conditions  tended  to  improve, 
the  improvements  paled  into  the  merest  insig- 
nificance compared  with  the  increased  and  in- 
creasing capacity  for  wealth  production.  In  the 
industrial  centres  of  South  Wales,  the  Midlands, 
the  Potteries,  Lancashire,  Yorkshire,  in  Scotland 
and  elsewhere,  while  the  industrial  capitalists 
and  financiers  were  making  more  in  profits  from 
the  sale  of  by-products  than  would  assure  a 
return  on  the  invested  capital,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  profits  derived  from  the  principal  commodi- 
ties produced,  the  workers  were  frequently  com- 
pelled to  live  under  conditions  which  were  a 
denial  of  our  proud  claims  to  call  ourselves  a 
civilised  people.  Housing  conditions  were,  and, 
indeed,  still  are,  as  Robert  Smillie  showed  before 


THE   OLDER   OUTLOOK  55 

the  Coal  Industry  Commission,  so  deplorable, 
that  the  wealthy  coal  magnates,  who  are  chiefly 
responsible,  would  refrain  from  stabling  their 
horses  or  kennelling  their  dogs  in  the  habitations 
which  have  to  suffice  for  the  beings  fashioned  in 
the  Divine  image. 

Small  wonder  that  there  was  "Labour  Unrest" : 
the  difficulty  was  to  understand  why  the  entire 
edifice  of  the  self-condemned  system  of  private 
greed  and  organised  cupidity  did  not  fall  because 
of  its  own  inherent  contradictions.  That  which 
passes  for  "  public  opinion  "  was  only  compelled 
to  realise  some  aspects  of  the  horrors  and 
iniquities  of  the  system  when  its  sheltered 
members  were  deprived  of  coal,  or  compelled  to 
exist  on  more  precarious  supplies  of  other  neces- 
saries, or  again  embarrassed  by  transport  stoppage 
and  dislocation.  The  "middling  "  class,  together 
with  their  social  superiors,  having  lost  any 
capacity  for  independent  thinking,  because  they 
have  for  so  long  ' '  put  out "  their  thinking  to 
the  Press,  as  their  wives  have  "put  out"  their 
washing,  were  at  all  times  opposed  to  the  strikers 
in  any  conflict  between  workers  and  employers. 
Heaven  be  praised,  however,  this  brand  of  so- 
called  public  opinion  has  about  as  much  eff"ect 
on  the  men's  minds  during  a  strike  as  water  on 
the  back  of  a  duck. 


56    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

Events  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
were  shaping  themselves  for  an  embittered 
struggle  between  "haves"  and  "have-nots." 
Scientific  Socialism  had  for  half  a  century  pre- 
dicted the  intensification  of  the  Class  Struggle, 
following  on  the  international  attempts  on  the 
part  of  rival  capitalisms  and  their  attendant 
militarisms  andnavalisms,to  control  and  dominate 
the  World  Market.  True  to  the  writing  of  Marx 
and  his  followers,  the  old-time  Peace,  Retrench- 
ment and  Reform  of  Victorian  Liberalism  had 
to  make  way  for  the  strident  and  inevitable 
imperialism  of  Joseph  Chamberlain  and  his 
school  of  modern  statesmen.  Manchester,  with 
its  cotton,  desiring  only  "  peaceful  penetration  " 
through  the  agency  of  missionaries,  accompanied, 
incidentally,  by  a  handful  of  rifles  and  much 
gin,  gives  way  to  Birmingham,  with  its  "brazen" 
outlook,  its  "  forceful  penetration,"  and  its  un- 
hesitating will  to  thrust  its  metal  productions 
upon  a  willing  or  unwilling  world.  This  is  the 
titanic  period  when  Labour,  growingly  informed 
and  gathering  strength  in  order  to  challenge  the 
exploiting  class  in  every  country,  is  demanding 
with  more  and  more  insistence  its  own  place  in 
the  sun. 

How  far  the  war  itself  was  the  result  of  the 
fear  in  the  minds  of  many  of  the  statesmen  of 


THE   OLDER    OUTLOOK  57 

the  various  countries  must  remain  a  matter  for 
conjecti:lTe.  TJiere  need  be  no  surmise,  however, 
regarding  the  attitude  of  most  of  the  Leaders 
of  organised  Labour.  In  Germany,  France,  and 
similarly  in  Britain,  when  "Peace"  and  "Dis- 
armament "  were  blessed  words  to  trip  off  the 
tongue,  how  our  Labour  Leaders  and  at  least  a 
few  revolutionary  Socialists  used  to  wax  eloquent 
on  the  measures  to  be  adopted  against  the  war. 
But  when  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  began  to 
vomit  their  specious  pleas  to  the  workers  that 
their  services  were  required  to  fight  for  King 
and  Country,  when  the  entire  bourgeois  Press 
echoed  and  re-echoed  the  "  sob  stuff"  about  Poor 
and  Gallant  Little  Belgium,  the  protection  of 
our  dear  little  homes  ad  nauseam,  observe  our 
erstwhile  pacifists,  our  Nonconformists,  and 
especially  our  sometime  teachers  and  preachers 
of  International  Working-class  Solidarity,  urge 
upon  the  workers  of  this  country  the  supreme 
need  to  destroy  the  ^vorkers  of  other  countries, 
who  also  were  duped  and  deluded  by  the  new- 
born zeal  for  militarism  of  their  own  particular 
mis-leaders. 

These  instances  are  given  to  show  that  men's 
minds  are  governed  by  economic  factors,  and  not 
to  anticipate  what  will  be  said  later  regarding 
war   motivet    and    psychology.      The    classical 


58    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

instance  of  economic  determinism  is  to  be  found 
in  the  precious  antics  of  Mr  Samu^el  Go&ipers  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labour.  During 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  war — before  America 
had  entered,  and,  as  one  of  her  own  writers  has 
said,  while  President  Wilson  was  periodically 
"  baring  his  gums  "  —  Gompers  maintained  a 
more  or  less  correct  attitude,  impartial  and  anti- 
militarist  and  most  decidedly  non-interventionist, 
but  when  the  American  dollar-worshippers  had 
pumped  so  much  money  into  the  Allies,  in  the 
shape  of  food  and  war  munitions  (they  would 
have  done  the  same  for  Germany  had  we  not 
maintained  our  own  tolerant  version  of  the 
Freedom  of  the  Seas),  there  was  no  course  open 
to  America  but  to  come  right  in  for  the  sake  of 
her  investments  and  her  own  skin.  Now  the 
egregious  Mr  Gompers  becomes  more  unbalanced 
than  any  European  super-working-class  patriot, 
and  for  the  perfectly  clear  reasons  I  have  already 
indicated. 

Having  touched  on  the  Older,  or  pre-World 
War  Outlook,  the  changing,  or  transitional,  out- 
look will  be  dealt  with  in  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER   II. 

The  Changing  Outlook. 

It  has  been  well  written  that  Revolution  is 
simply  accelerated  Evolution.  Karl  Marx  and 
the  principal  advocates  of  Marxism  foresaw  the 
possibility  of  war  as  the  midwife  of  social  revolu- 
tion. There  were,  in  the  old  order,  the  seeds  of 
its  own  destruction.  Well  might  Mr  Asquith 
speak  of  the  "precarious  equipoise"  of  the  Bal- 
ance of  Power.  The  equipoise  of  the  capitalist 
system  of  production,  distribution  and  exchange 
was  just  as  precarious  as  that  of  the  Balance  of 
Power,  which  was  really  a  product  of  the  clash- 
ings  of  competing  capitalisms  and  their  resultant 
militarisms  and  navalisms. 

One  result  of  the  war  was  to  teach  many  of  us 
geography  and  ethnology.  Did  not  Mr  George 
frankly  admit  he  did  not  even  know  of  the 
existence,  to  say  nothing  of  the  whereabouts  and 
economic  and  strategic  importance,  of  Teschen, 
when  adjusting  the  rival  claims  of  Czech- Slovakia 
and  Poland  ?  War  teaches  economics  more  effec- 
tively than  all  the  puerile  and  pedantic  professors 
occupying  their  fatuous  chairs  at  the  modern 
universities,  and  shakes  islanders  like  ourselves 


60    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

out  of  our  complacent  insularity.  It  takes  pro- 
letarians out  of  the  ruts  in  which  they  have  spent 
their  lives  ;  and  once  over  the  short-lived  spasm 
of  patriotic  ecstasy  which  induced  them  to  "join 
up,"  they  were  given  ample  opportunity  during 
military  training  and  subsequent  military  opera- 
tions to  see  life  outside  their  immediate  homes, 
and  during  the  enforced  leisure  of  trench  warfare, 
to  ponder  over  the  facts  and  implications  of  war. 

Every  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  workers 
who  were,  for  a  time,  deceived  by  the  trumpery 
devices  ado|)ted  by  super-patriots,  when  we  bear 
in  mind  the  recreancy  of  their  leaders,  who  time 
and  time  again  had  declared  that  it  was  the 
bounden  duty,  iu  the  event  of  war  threatening 
to  break  out,  to  use  every  effort  within  their 
power  to  prevent  it.  This  was  the  spirit  under- 
lying innumerable  resolutions  passed  at  Inter- 
national Labour  and  Socialist  Congresses,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  Socialist  propaganda  conducted 
amongst  the  various  nationalities.  War,  says 
Trietschke,  is  only  the  logical  extension  of  political 
policy. 

Looking  at  Europe  to-day,  we  see  that  four 
and  a  half  years  of  war,  and  the  armed  truce 
and  furtive  warfare  which  have  followed  the  sign- 
ing of  the  Armistice,  have  exercised  a  more  pro- 
found effect  upon  the  mentality  of  the  toiling 
masses  than  twenty  years  and  more  of  sedulous 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  61 

and  well-directed  propaganda  on  the  part  of  the 
revolutionary  Socialist.  If  the  hands  of  the 
clock  could  be  put  back,  and  Nicholas,  Wilhelm 
and  their  crowned  confreres  placed  back  on  the 
respective  thrones  from  which  they  have  been 
shaken  ;  if  their  ministers  and  chancellors  had 
possessed  themselves  of  some  semblance  of  pro- 
phetic insight,  how  they  would  have  laboured, 
might  and  main,  in  order  that  the  incident  of 
Sarajevo  should  have  been  a  matter  for  diplo- 
matic adjustment,  and  thus  give  effect  to  the 
pious  wishes  which  brought  into  being  the  Hague 
Tribunal !  But  they,  poor  figure-heads,  w^ere 
creatures — not  creators — of  the  inexorable  facts  of 
the  system  of  modern  capitalism  and  imperialism. 
In  the  numerous  frontier  wars  and  punitive 
expeditions,  together  with  the  enterprise  of  the 
Boer  War,  the  overwhelming  mass  of  the  people 
of  this  country  were  only  slightly  involved. 
Defenders  of  the  existing  order  used  fondly  to 
declare  that  another  war  was  necessary  to  show^ 
our  nation-wide  solidarity  against  the  mischievous 
class  influences  of  the  workers,  w^hich  found  ex- 
pression from  time  to  time  in  labour  upheavals, 
threatening  to  reach  greater  magnitude  and  more 
widespread  complications.  Even  the  workers 
themselves,  obsessed  with  the  constant  fear  of 
unemployment  and  under-employment,  attributed 
many  of  the  evils  of  their  lives,  as  did  Malthus, 


62    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

to  over-population,  and  one  heard  again  and  again 
amono;st  members  of  the  working-class  that  a 
war  would  be  a  good  thing,  in  order  to  thin  out 
the  ranks  of  the  working  people  and  thereby 
eliminate  the  worst  effects  of  the  struggle  for 
a  job. 

The  present  writer  was  a  speaker  from  the 
Nelson  Column  in  Trafalgar  Square  on  that  fate- 
ful Sunday  of  2nd  August  1914,  during  the  great 
Demonstration  of  protest  against  the  possibility 
of  war  and  Britain's  participation  on  the  side  of 
France  and  Russia.  This  vast  Demonstration, 
representing  the  intelligent  workmen  of  Greater 
London,  expressed  its  serious  alarm  at  the  prospect 
of  the  then  imminent  European  War,  into  which 
many  of  the  Great  Powers  would  be  drawn  in 
consequence  of  the  alliances  and  commitments  of 
the  various  Secretaries  of  War  and  Chancellors 
in  the  respective  countries.  It  went  on  to  declare 
that  only  the  efforts  of  the  International  Working- 
class  by  cohesion  and  proletarian  solidarity  could 
prevent  their  Governments  from  entering  upon 
war ;  it  protested  against  any  steps  on  the  part 
of  the  British  Government  to  support  Russia, 
either  directly  or  in  consequence  of  an  under- 
standing with  France.  This  was  the  tenor  of 
working  -  class  speeches  delivered  before  war 
became  absolutely  inevitable. 

What  about  the  possibility  of  a  general  strike 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  63 

against  war,  asked  the  enthusiastic,  working-class 
questioner  ?  This  had  been  a  matter  for  con- 
sideration at  International  Socialist  and  Trade 
Union  Congresses  for  a  number  of  years,  but  it 
was  realised  that  while  a  good  deal  of  zeal  and 
enthusiasm  existed  in  the  minds  of  the  minority 
in  favour  of  this  policy,  any  kind  of  strike,  partial 
or  general,  national  or  intern-ational,  would  prove 
abortive  unless  there  were  a  formidable  majority 
in  favour  of  such  a  policy.  Robert  Smillie, 
speaking  at  the  International  Mine-workers'  Con- 
ference at  Karlsbad  in  July  1913,  said  :  "There 
is  sufficient  strength  in  the  organised  Labour 
Movement  of  Great  Britain  and  the  Continents 
of  Europe  and  America  to  prevent  any  threatened 
war  taking  place,  by  the  calling  of  an  Inter- 
national Conference  and  the  carrying  of  a  Resolu- 
tion that  all  work  should  be  stopped  in  the  nations 
concerned  until  they  agreed  to  arbitration,"  It 
is,  moreover,  on  record  that  at  the  Newport 
Conference  of  the  National  Transport  Workers' 
Federation,  held  in  1913,  there  was  an  instruction 
to  the  Federation  to  place  upon  the  Agenda  of 
the  then  forthcoming  International  Transport 
Workers'  Conference  the  following  Resolution  : — 

That  this  Convention  of  Transport  Workers  of 
all  nations  views  with  alarm  the  rapid  growth  of 
armaments,  and  the  ever-present  menace  of  war. 

We  are  convinced  that  there  is  no  quarrel  between 
the  workers  of  the  various  nations,  and  look  upon 


64     THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

the  war-fever  which  is  created  by  the  Capitalist 
Press  and  by  the  financial  interests,  which  alone 
profit  by  the  increased  expenditure  on  armaments 
and  munitions  of  war,  as  an  attempt  to  pervert  the 
minds  of  the  people  from  their  increasing  desire  to 
improve  their  economic  status. 

In  the  event  of  international  war  being  imminent, 
in  consequence  of  the  criminal  conduct  of  the  war 
factions,  and  without  the  consent  of  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  people  involved,  we  recommend 
a  general  stoppage  of  work  among  all  transport 
workers  who  are  engaged  in  the  transportation  of 
troops  and  munitions  of  war. 

We,  therefore,  instruct  the  General  Council  to  take 
the  necessary  steps  to  make  this  Resolution  operative, 
and  call  on  the  leaders  of  the  Transport  Workers  in 
all  countries  to  prepare  for  an  International  strike  of 
our  members  as  a  means  to  prevent  the  fratricidal 
war  which  is  constantly  threatening  us. 

Keir  Hardie  for  Great  Britain  and  Villiant 
for  France  strongly  supported  the  general  strike 
aorainst  war  at  the  International  Socialist  Con- 
ference  in  Copenhagen  in  August  1910,  and  in 
theory  and  on  principle  the  leaders  of  the  working 
people  have  an  infinitely  greater  right  to  commit 
and  to  pledge  their  followers  in  favour  of  a 
general  strike  against  war  than  had  Grey,  Sazanofi", 
Bethman  -  Hollweg  and  others  to  commit  the 
workers  to  cut  each  other's  throats  in  the  interests 
of  the  financiers,  bond-holders,  industrial  land- 
lords and  capitalists  of  their  respective  countries. 
The  organised  and   ofiicial  will-to-peace  in  our 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  65 

own  country  in  particular,  and  in  the  other 
countries  in  general,  as  expressed  by  Resolutions 
and  in  the  speeches  of  the  leaders  of  the  organised 
masses,  proved  to  be,  indeed,  short-lived. 

The  overrunning  of  "  Gallant  Little  Belgium  " 
by  the  German  legions  was  the  pretext  which 
brought  Great  Britain  into  the  World  War,  but 
everyone  in  the  know  realised  at  the  time,  and 
now  admits,  that  had  the  Liberal  Government 
failed  to  take  the  necessary  steps  to  join  in  the 
universal  fratricide  in  1914,  a  Coalition  of  the 
Imperialist  Liberals,  including  the  present  Prime 
Minister,  and  the  Unionist  Party  was  in  process 
of  formation  and  would  have  been  ready  to  act 
had  the  Liberal  Party,  as  a  Party,  attempted  to 
remain  true  to  many  of  its  old-time  traditions. 

The  crudest  display  of  innocent  credulity  on 
the  part  of  many  of  the  leaders  of  organised 
Labour  was  shown  in  the  declaration  in  favour 
of  an  industrial  truce,  decided  upon  on  24th 
August  1914  by  the  Joint  Committee  of  the 
General  Federation  of  Trade  Unions,  the  Trades' 
Union  Congress  and  the  Labour  Party.  The 
Resolution  was  as  follows  : — 

That  an  immediate  effort  be  made  to  terminate  all 
existing  trade  disputes,  whether  strikes  or  lock-outs, 
and  whenever  new  points  of  difficulty  arise  during 
the  war  period  a  serious  attempt  should  be  made 
by  all  concerned  to  reach  an  amicable  settlement 
before  resorting  to  a  strike  or  lock-out. 

s 


66    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

The  trusting  and  docile  individuals  who  were 
responsible  for  the  promulgation  of  this  policy 
soon  found  that  the  Government  was  more  than 
anxious  to  take  advantage  of  this  willingness  on 
the  part  of  the  lamb  to  lie  down  with  the  lion, 
and  shortly  afterwards  passed  legislation  making 
strikes,  and  agitation  in  favour  thereof,  a  penal 
offence.  These  complacent  mis-leaders  of  Labour 
had  forgotten  the  whole  history  of  the  class 
struggle,  and  were  foolish  enough  to  imagine  that 
the  capitalist  lion  would  change  its  skin  and 
desist  from  its  age-long  efforts  to  crush  the 
workmen's  organisations,  or,  better  still,  rob 
them  of  all  their  fighting  possibilities. 

The  one  body  which,  however,  endeavoured 
to  maintain  the  prestige  of  the  Working-class 
Mov^ement  was  one  hastily  convened,  and  called 
the  War  Emergency  Workers'  National  Com- 
mittee. This  body  had  to  keep  before  its  mind's 
eye  constantly  during  the  war  period  the  need 
for  well-informed  and  pungent  criticism  of  the 
Grovernment,  and  to  do  its  utmost  in  order  to 
maintain  the  workers'  standard  of  life.  At  first 
it  was  felt  that  the  war  would  lead  to  a  tremen- 
dous industrial  crisis,  with  vast  and  growing  un- 
employment and  under-employment.  This  was, 
indeed,  the  case,  until  there  were  such  calls  upon 
the  man-power  of  the  country,  by  persistent 
recruiting,  and   latterly  by  the  application  of 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  67 

military  conscription,  as  to  remove  any  possi- 
bility of  unemployment  during  thewar's  duration. 

Following  upon  the  industrial  truce,  there  was 
a  political  truce,  given  effect  to  and  cemented  by 
the  entry  of  certain  well-known  Labour  members 
into  the  first,  and  later  the  second,  Coalition 
Government.  The  treason  of  political  associa- 
tion with  the  Liberal  and  Conservative  Parties 
was  on  a  par  with  the  treason  of  giving  away 
the  right  of  the  workman  to  withdraw  his  labour, 
which  had  been  effected  under  the  industrial 
truce.  But,  pledge  the  workers  as  they  liked, 
no  body  of  leaders  had  any  assurance  that  the 
workers  w^ould  themselves  forgo  their  long- 
established  right  to  withdraw  their  labour  in 
order  to  maintain  and,  if  possible,  improve  their 
economic  status. 

Popular  recruiting  was  assisted  by  Labour 
members  throughout  the  country,  and  it  is  now 
clearly  seen,  as  so  many  of  us  foresaw,  that  the 
Eegistration  Scheme  of  1915,  and  the  subsequent 
"Derby"  Scheme  of  the  same  year,  with  its 
policy  of  attestation,  were  only  the  preliminary 
steps  to  destroy  organised  antagonism  and  to 
break  the  resistance  to  military  conscription  on 
the  part  of  the  workers  themselves.  Those  who 
did  join  up  in  1914  and  1915,  and  those  who 
w^ere  conscripted  later,  following  upon  the  dupli- 
city of  the  politicians  and  the  muddle-headedness 


68    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

of  the  Trade  Union  Leaders,  were  beginning  to 
realise  the  consequences  of  the  war  as  it  pro- 
ceeded month  by  month. 

Prices  were  increasing  rapidly,  while  wages 
remained  stationary,  and  the  separation  allow- 
ances, fixed  at  a  time  when  food  prices  had  risen 
but  15  per  cent.,  became  a  danger  to  the  well- 
being  of  the  dependents  of  soldiers  and  sailors, 
as  prices  mounted  to  30,  40  and  50  per  cent, 
above  the  pre-war  level.  It  was  first  due  to  the 
spirited  advocacy  of  the  War  Workers'  National 
Committee,  and  the  unrelenting  criticism  of  the 
small  number  of  anti-war  Labour  and  Liberal 
members  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the 
separation  allowances  were  gradually  increased. 
In  the  first  few  months  of  the  war  prices  in- 
creased 30  per  cent,  before  a  single  penny  was 
added  to  the  wages  of  the  work-people — had 
increased,  not  because  commodities  had  cost  one 
single  penny  per  pound  or  per  ton  more  to  be 
produced  and  distributed,  but  because,  taking 
advantage  of  the  shortage  of  supplies,  and  in 
consequence  of  the  increased  demand  upon  those 
supplies  by  food  hoarders  and  speculators,  pro- 
fiteering had  become  general.  This  word  "  pro- 
fiteering," which  has  received  universal  currency 
during  the  war,  was  a  word  largely  confined  to 
the  vocabulary  of  Socialists  before  the  war,  and 
is  itself  a  sign  of  the  changing  mentality  of  the 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  69 

workers,  and  of  their  growing  bitterness  towards 
the  privileged  and  propertied  classes. 

As  a  member  of  the  War  Emergency  Workers' 
National  Committee,  I  was  asked  to  give  evidence 
before  a  Departmental  Committee  on  Food  Prices 
in  October  1916.  In  order  to  show  the  influence 
of  high  freights  on  high  prices,  the  Departmental 
Committee  were  informed  that  prior  to  the  out- 
break of  war  the  freights  from  the  Argentine 
Kepublic  to  the  United  Kingdom  on  cargoes  of 
grain  were  anything  between  10s,  and  lis.  per 
ton,  but  in  February  1915  freights  for  the  same 
class  of  merchandise,  and  for  the  same  journey, 
had  risen  to  60s.  and  70s.  per  ton,  and  that  in 
the  summer  of  1916  they  had  increased  to  the 
stupendous  amount  of  160s.,  compared  with  the 
pre-war  figure  of  10s.  An  instance  was  quoted 
in  a  capitalist  newspaper  that  ships  sailing 
from  South  Wales,  outward-bound  with  coal  at 
75s.  per  ton  and  homeward-bound  with  grain, 
could  make  enough  profit  on  one  single  voyage 
to  pay  the  entire  capital  charge  of  the  ship. 
Well  might  Mr  Asquith  declare  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  in  his  speeches  on  the  recruiting 
platforms,  that  "  No  sacrifice  could  be  too  great 
when  freedom  and  honour  are  at  stake."  In  the 
annual  review  of  the  freight  market  for  1915, 
the  Syre7i  and  Shipping,  which  is  an  organ 
run  in  the  interests  of  the  ship-owning  fraternity, 


70     THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

made  the  following  significant  announcement : — 

We  anticipated  further  record  rates  for  1915,  but 
that  freights  should  ever  have  reached  the  giddy 
heights  of  to-day  was  beyond  the  expectation  of  the 
most  sanguine  shipping  man.  The  year  just  ended 
has  been  almost  from  beginning  to  end  a  cause  of 
breathless  surprise  to  the  ship-owner,  and  at  times 
the  rises  have  been  so  rapid  as  to  make  record  rates 
look  comparatively  poor  in  a  few  days.  .  .  .  With 
the  exception  of  outward  freights  to  the  West,  there 
is  no  market  in  the  world  which  does  not  show 
freights  which  are  hardly  short  of  appalling. 

Except  for  considerations  of  space  one  might 
enumerate  a  thousand  instances  of  the  scandalous 
manner  in  which  the  propertied  classes  of  this 
country  took  advantage  of  the  patriotic  zeal  of 
the  work-people  during  the  period  of  the  war. 
It  is  on  record  that  a  representative  Conference 
was  held  at  the  Memorial  Hall,  at  which  the 
Parliamentary  Committee  of  the  Trade  Union 
Congress  tabled  a  Kesolution  calling  upon  the 
Government  to  requisition  all  the  available 
shipping  tonnage,  and  themselves  become  pur- 
chasers of  the  necessary  supplies  of  food  in  the 
available  markets  of  the  world,  and  to  sell  such 
at  the  cost  of  production  and  distribution,  and 
thus  eliminate  any  possibility  of  further  plunder 
and  profiteering  whilst  the  war  was  .on.  An 
amendment  to  the  Kesolution  was  submitted, 
declaring  that  should  the  Government  refuse  to 
take  the  necessary  steps  to  supply  food  at  the 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  71 

bare  cost  73f  production  and  transportation,  the 
Unions  be  instructed  to  take  the  only  course 
open  to  them,  namely,  to  demand  increases  in 
wages  commensurate  with  the  increase  in  the 
cost  of  living.  This  policy  at  the  time  was 
derided  by  the  frothily  patriotic  section,  who 
declared  that  this  would  be  of  more  advantage 
to  the  Germans  than  twenty  divisions  in  the 
field.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  workers  were 
forced  by  the  inexorable  pressure  of  events  to 
realise  that  their  only  hope  lay,  not  in  Press  or 
in  politicians,  but  in  the  industrial  strength  of 
their  right  arm,  and  in  the  capacity  to  threaten 
and,  if  necessary,  take  strike  action  for  the 
enforcement  of  their  demands. 

Another  factor  which  had  a  profound  effect 
upon  the  mentality  of  the  workers  during  the 
war  w^as  the  unscrupulous  campaign  of  opposition 
towards  the  Unions  for  the  shell  shortage,  to 
which  much  prominence  was  given  in  the  Press 
during  1915.  Those  of  us  who  were  present  at 
the  various  Conferences  convened  by  the  present 
Prime  Minister,  both  when  he  was  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  and  subsequently  when  he  became 
Minister  of  Munitions,  will  remember  the  resent- 
ment shown  by  the  loyal  custodians  of  the 
integrity  of  the  Trade  Union  Movement.  Mr 
Lloyd  George  declared  on  more  than  one  occasion 
that  there  were  three  enemies :  Austria-Hungary, 


72    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

Germany,  and — Drink,  and  of  the  three  the  latter 
was  more  formidable  than  either  the  first  or 
second.  No  device  was  too  mean  on  the  part  of 
the  lying  and  deceitful  politicians  in  their  efforts, 
eagerly  seized  upon  by  the  Capitalist  Press,  to 
show  that  some  dereliction  of  duty  on  the  part 
of  the  workers  was  chiefly  responsible  for  the 
shortage  of  high-explosive  shells.  As  an  inter- 
esting commentary  upon  that,  some  useful  purpose 
may  be  served  by  quoting  a  letter  which,  at  the 
time,  was  of  a  private  and  confidential  character, 
and  which  was  sent  to  the  Chairman  and  members 
of  the  National  Advisory  Committee,  and  to 
which  the  writer  received  no  acknowledgment. 
The  letter  is  as  follows  : — 

Gentlemen, 

Everyone  who  listened  to  Mr  Lloyd  George's 
speech  yesterday  was  made  fully  aware  of  the  magni- 
tude of  the  problem  which  confronts  the  nation  and 
which  will  test  the  administrative  ability  of  those 
ajDpointed  to  find  a  solution.  As  you  know,  there 
was  little  or  no  time  for  adequate  discussion,  and 
all  who  valued  the  importance  of  time  remained 
silent. 

The  Minister  of  Munitions  spoke  with  becoming 
candour  and  removed  much  of  the  darkness  which 
prevailed  regarding  the  supply  of  suitable  ammuni- 
tion. You  will  remember  that  he  commenced  by 
saying  with  conspicuous  clearness  that  he  was 
quite  willing  to  assume  for  both  the  late  and  the 
present  Government  a  large  share  of  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  now  generally  admitted  shortage 
^      of  high-explosive  shells.     He  said  that  our  Higher 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  73 

Command  had  taken  until  some  time  this  year 
to  realise  what  the  French  Command  had  learned 
as  far  back  as  last  October.  Further,  he  told 
us  that  the  War  Office  officials  had  not  spread 
their  orders,  as  it  would  have  been  better  they  had, 
regarding  the  desired  quantities.  It  was  further 
frankly  admitted  that  contractors  had  not  yet 
delivered  supplies  promised  as  far  back  as  February 
last. 

With  regard  to  all  this,  and  the  statement  regard- 
ing the  crumpling  iip  of  Russia,  we  were  one  and  all 
enjoined  to  secrecy,  which  I  am  convinced  is  only 
proper  in  the  national  interest.  You  must  all  know 
how  the  workers,  and  especially  the  organised 
section,  have  been  condemned  and  maligned  by  a 
large  section  of  the  Press  and  public,  because  of  some 
alleged  slackness  on  their  part  to  produce  the 
necessary  supplies  of  ammunition.  There  has  been 
growing  steadily  a  tendency  to  pass  the  entire  re- 
sponsibility on  to  the  Trade  Unionists  for  most  of  the 
enormous  casualties  which  have  occurred  since  the 
Allies  have  definitely  assumed  the  aggressive.  Those 
in  high  places  have  not  been  averse  to  the  reptUe 
Press  countenancing  the  idea  that  the  men  at  the 
front  have  been  deprived  of  the  necessary  means  of 
defending  their  lives  because  of  the  apathy,  laziness 
and  greed  of  the  men  employed  in  the  production 
and  distribution  of  munitions  of  war.  A  contri- 
butory factor  to  this  has  been  the  excerpts  from 
Mr  Lloyd  George's  speeches.  There  has  been  a 
persistent  rumour  that  the  appalling  losses  sustained 
at  Neuve  Chapelle  were  largely  due  to  a  supply  ship 
loaded  at  Liverpool  being  held  up  by  the  dispute 
which  took  place  there  quite  recently. 

We  have  to  remember  that  there  are  at  present 
something  like  750,000  Trade  Unionists  serving  with 
the  armed  forces.  The  bulk  of  the  information 
supplied  to  them  comes  through  a  source  not  merely 


74    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

averse  to  Trade  Unionism,  but  tainted  with  the 
vilest  reaction. 

In  order  to  protect  ourselves  and  those  we  repre- 
sent, it  is  manifestly  incumbent  upon  us  to  give  the 
lie  to  the  unjust  reproaches  levelled  against  us  and 
the  workers  from  time  to  time.  Mr  Lloyd  George 
is  a  man  of  courage.  He  asks  us  to  take  our  courage 
in  our  hands  to  deal  with  those  who  are  persistently 
losing  time.  We  shall  do  our  share,  and  I  would 
urgently  ask  all  to  induce  the  Minister  of  Munitions 
to  do  his. 

This  is,  in  regard  to  the  facts  he  revealed  to  us 
yesterday.  We  naturally  do  not  wish  to  embarrass 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  or  anyone  else,  but 
Mr  Lloyd  George  can,  without  attaching  blame  to 
any  single  party,  remove  a  vast  amount  of  mis- 
apprehension concerning  the  workers  and  their  part 
in  the  production  of  war  supplies. 

I  trust  that  you  will  give  this  matter  your  serious 
consideration.  I  have  spoken  to  my  colleague, 
Harry  Gosling,  and  he  agrees  with  me  that  Mr 
Lloyd  George  should  act  generously  to  those  who 
have  been  calumniated  without  justification.  I 
have  to  regret  trespassing  upon  your  time.  I  have 
been  briefer  than  I  "wished  to  be,  and  can  only  hope 
that  you  will  press  this  matter  home,  as  it  wall  help 
enormously  more  than  it  will  hinder. 

Yours  faithfully, 

Robert  Williams. 

"  It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  the  things  to 
which  this  letter  relates,  more  especially  in  view 
of  the  malicious  and  unsubstantiated  charges  of 
the  Minister  of  Munitions  in  September  1915  at 
Bristol  and  elsewhere.  Moreover,  we  are  given 
a  clearer  idea  as  to  why  Mr  Lloyd  George  is  a 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  75 

new  convert  to  Industrial  and  Military  com- 
pulsion." Thus,  in  another  connection,  wrote 
the  present  writer,  in  referring  to  the  letter. 

As  the  war  continued  with  its  fearful  casualty 
lists,  as  the  legal  grip  upon  the  workmen's 
organisations  became  tighter  and  tighter,  there 
grew  a  sullen  resentment  against  the  continued 
prosecution  of  the  war  and  an  implacable  will  to 
destroy  the  growing  power  of  the  bureaucracy 
in  this  and  other  countries.  It  must  not  be 
assumed  for  a  moment  that  antagonism  to  the 
war  was  confined  to  British  soldiers,  sailors  and 
workmen.  We  have  since  received  evidence 
that  in  Germany  munition  strikes  took  place  on 
even  larger  dimensions  than  those  which  occurred 
in  this  country,  and  the  existence  of  four  million 
Social-Democratic  voters,  taught  or  schooled  in 
the  writings  of  Marxian  Socialism,  must  have 
had  its  effect  upon  the  mentality  of  the  German 
fighters  and  workers. 

Those  of  us  who  are  revolutionists,  and  who 
during  the  war  maintained  an  unabated  hostility 
to  it  because  of  the  growing  and  ever-menacing 
aggressionist  designs  of  our  own  Government — 
which  have  been  abundantly  reflected  in  the 
Peace  Treaty  of  Versailles  —  were  enthused 
beyond  words  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Russian 
Revolution.  Here  was  an  historical  landmark 
destroying,  fortunately,  any  remote  possibility 


76    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

of  a  separate  peace  between  Austria-Hungary, 
Germany  and  Russia,  and  the  creation  of  an 
alliance  of  the  three  autocratic  and  militarist 
empires  of  Central  and  Eastern  Europe.  At 
last  the  solid  ice  of  militarism  and  imperialism 
was  breaking  ;  and  the  first  visible  rent  appeared 
in  the  formation  of  Workers',  Soldiers'  and 
Peasants'  Councils  throughout  Kussia,  with  the 
magnificent  organisation  in  Red  Petrograd. 

On  31st  March  1917  Mr  George  Lansbury, 
Mr  Robert  Smillie  and  the  present  writer, 
together  with  a  number  of  others,  promoted  a 
Demonstration  which  took  place  in  the  Albert 
Hall  to  welcome  the  overthrow  of  the  Tsarist 
Government  and  the  establishment  of  a  Revo- 
lutionary Republic  in  Russia.  The  Manifesto 
issued  by  the  Council  of  Russian  Workmen 
and  Soldiers'  Delegates  to  their  fellow-workers 
throughout  the  world  was  read  and  tremendously 
applauded. 

Brothers  of  the  Proletariat, 

Russia  will  steadfastly  defend  her  own  liberty 
from  all  reactionary  onslaughts,  within  and  without. 
The  time  has  come  to  begin  a  decisive  struggle 
against  the  conquest  aspirations  of  the  Governments 
of  all  countries.  The  time  has  come  for  the  peoples 
to  take  into  their  hands  the  decision  of  the  questions 
of  war  and  peace.  Conscious  of  its  revolutionary 
strength,  Russian  democracy  proclaims  that  it  will 
combat  in  every  way  the  riiling  classes'  policy  of 
conquest,  and  it  calls  on  the  peoples  of  Europe  to 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  77 

take  common  decisive  action  in  the  interest  of  peace. 
Workers  of  all  countries,  in  extending  to  you  a 
fraternal  hand  over  mountains  of  brothers'  corpses, 
across  rivers  of  innocent  blood  and  tears,  and  through 
the  smoking  ruins  of  toAvns  and  villages  and  the 
destroyed  treasures  of  civilisation,  we  summon  you 
to  a  renewal  and  strengthening  of  international 
unity.  Therein  lies  a  gage  of  our  victory  and  of  our 
complete  freedom. 

The  Russian  Eevolution,  with  all  it  implied 
and  involved,  was  the  turning-point  in  the  atti- 
tude of  the  internatioual  proletariat  towards  the 
war-mongering  of  the  proprietary  classes.  Even 
the  leaders,  who  were,  maybe,  themselves  misled, 
and  who  in  turn  certainly  misled  the  w^orkers, 
were  beginning  to  realise  the  imminence  of  a 
change  in  the  mentality  of  the  people  and  a  grow- 
ing revolutionary  outlook.  In  spite  of  national 
servitude,  felicitously  described  as  "national 
service,"  in  spite  of  repressive  legislation,  not- 
withstanding our  broken-up  meetings,  risking 
the  consequences  of  Munitions  Acts  and  other 
forms  of  legal  embargoes,  the  workers — or  at 
least  the  militant  section  thereof — displayed  an 
unrelenting  opposition  to  the  continued  pro- 
secution of  the  w^ar,  to  the  combing  -  out  of 
members,  hitherto  protected  in  the  reserved  and 
exempted  occupations,  and  fought  strenuously 
for  peace  by  meaiis  of  the  proposed  Stockholm 
International  Conference — and,  in  fact,  by  means 
of  every  opportunity  which  presented  itself. 


78    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

Going  as  far  back  as  1915,  when  the  Munitions 
Acts  were  first  introduced,  there  arose  spontane- 
ously a  strong  movement  of  Shop  Stewards  in 
the   engineering   and   allied   trades,   which  dis- 
played more   unceasing  vigilance   on  behalf  of 
working-class  and  trade-union  liberties  than  was 
shown  by  most   of  the   officials.     The  dilution 
proposals  of  the  Government  were  resisted,  not 
because   of  any    unwillingness   to    produce  the 
necessary  lethal  weapons,  but  because  the  workers 
valued  their  rights  as    skilled  trade  unionists,^ 
just  as  much  as  proprietors  valued  their  property. 
The  most  signal  instance  of  zeal  on  behalf  of 
industrial   liberties   was   shown   by   the    South 
Wales  miners  who,  being  unable  to  compel  the 
coal-owners  to  accede  to  their  application  for  an 
advance  in  wages,  withdrew  their  labour  and 
brought  about   an  automatic  cessation  of  coal 
production  in  the  whole    of  the  South  Wales 
coalfield.     They  were  solemnly  and  portentously 
proclaimed  under  the  Munitions  of  War  Act,  with 
all  its  pains  and  penalties,  to  which  they  took  as 
much  or  as  little  notice  as  they  would  to  a  cen- 
sorious leader  in  the  columns  of  Mr  Bottomley's 
newspaper.     In  spite  of  all  the  threats,  condign 
and  legal,  the  solidarity  of   the    South  Wales 
miners  defeated  the  Munitions  of  War  Act  and 
the  consequent  Royal   Proclamation,   and  they 
were  eventually  able  to  impose  their  own  terms 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  79 

upon  the  owners  and  to  obtain  the  concessions 
demanded  in  their  wages  movement.  It  only- 
required  the  unwavering  and  unhesitating  trade 
union  pressure  to  show  that  the  Munitions  of 
War  Act  w^as  no  more  formidable  than  a  house 
of  cards,  and  could  be  knocked  down  by  one  blow 
from  Labour's  Strong  Eight  Arm. 

While  their  leaders  had  either  sold  themselves 
or  handed  themselves  over  gratuitously  to  the 
militarist  rulers,  the  militant  members  of  the 
rank  and  file  continued  to  show  an  aptitude  for 
taking  advantage  of  every  revolutionary  contin- 
gency, and  in  July  1917  an  attempt  w^as  made 
(which  it  has  been  subsequently  discovered  had 
the  most  far-reaching  efifects  upon  Russian  revo- 
lutionary prospects)  to  form  a  British  Workers', 
Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Council.  We  were  excep- 
tionally fortunate  in  obtaining  the  services  of 
Mr  Robert  Smillie  to  preside  at  the  Unofiicial 
Conference  held  in  Leeds.  Robert  Smillie,  be  it 
noted,  refused  point-blank  to  accept  any  office 
in  the  bourgeois  Coalition  Government,  although 
in  consequence  of  the  growing  unrest  of  the 
workers  he  had  been  off'ered  by  Mr  Lloyd  George 
the  post,  either  of  Food  Controller,  Controller 
of  Mines,  or  Pensions  Minister.  Smillie  could 
have  enjoyed  the  magnificent  income  of  £5000 
per  annum,  and  could  have  had  access  to  any 
of  the  ducal  palaces,  like  Grosvenor  House,  if 


80    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

only  he  would  have  acted  disloyally  to  the  class 
from  which  he  has  sprung,  and  which  he  has 
always  so  ably  represented.  Smillie  was,  by 
means  of  a  boycott,  denied  hospitality  in  any 
hotel  in  Leeds  during  the  Conference,  because 
of  his  unwavering  loyalty  to  the  Working-class 
Movement  and  his  willingness  to  preside  over  the 
Leeds  Convention.  At  this  Leeds  Convention, 
at  which  were  Representatives  of  Socialist  organi- 
sations, Trades  and  Labour  Councils,  Labour 
Parties  and  Trade  Unions  branches,  there  were 
four  Resolutions. 

The  first,  moved  by  Mr  J.  Ramsay  Macdonald  : 

This  Conference  of  Labour,  Socialist  and  Demo- 
cratic organisations  of  Great  Britain,  hails  the 
Russian  Revolution.  With  gratitude  and  admira- 
tion it  congratulates  the  Russian  people  upon  a 
Revolution  which  has  overthrown  a  tyranny  that 
resisted  the  intellectual  and  social  development  of 
Russia,  which  has  removed  the  standing  menace  of 
an  aggressive  imperialism  in  Eastern  Europe,  and 
which  has  liberated  the  people  of  Russia  for  the 
great  work  of  establishing  their  own  political  and 
economic  freedom  on  a  firm  foundation,  and  of  taking 
a  foremost  part  in  the  international  movement  for 
workmg-class  emancipation  from  all  forms  of 
political,  economic  and  imperialist  oppression  and 
exploitation. 

The  second,  moved  by  Mr  Philip  Snowden  : 

This  Conference  of  Labour,  Socialist  and  Demo- 
cratic organisations  of  Great  Britain,  hails  with  the 
greatest  satisfaction  the  declaration  of  the  foreign 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  81 

policy  and  the  war  aims  of  the  Russian  Provisional 
Government,  and  it  shares  with  them  the  firm  con- 
viction that  the  fall  of  Tsardom  and  the  consolidation 
of  democratic  principles  in  Russia's  internal  and 
external  policy  will  create  in  the  democracies  of  other 
nations  new  aspirations  towards  a  stable  peace  and 
the  brotherhood  of  nations.  In  that  belief  we 
pledge  ourselves  to  work  for  an  agreement  with  the 
international  democracies  for  the  re-establishment 
of  a  general  peace  which  shall  not  tend  towards 
either  domination  by  or  over  any  nation,  or  the 
seizure  of  their  national  possessions,  or  the  violent 
usurpation  of  their  territories — a  peace  without 
annexations  or  indemnities  and  based  on  the  rights 
of  nations  to  decide  their  own  affairs  ;  and  as  a  first 
step  towards  this  aim  we  call  upon  the  British 
Government  immediately  to  announce  its  agreement 
with  the  declared  foreign  policy  and  war  aims  of 
the  democratic  Government  of  Russia. 

The  third,  moved  by  C.  Gr.  Ammon  : 

This  Conference  calls  upon  the  Government  of 
Great  Britain  to  place  itself  in  accord  with  the  demo- 
cracy of  Russia  by  proclaiming  its  adherence  to  and 
determination  to  carry  into  immediate  effect  a 
charter  of  liberties  establishing  complete  political 
rights  for  all  men  and  women,  unrestricted  freedom 
of  the  Press,  freedom  of  speech,  a  general  amnesty 
for  all  political  and  religious  prisoners,  fuU  rights 
of  industrial  and  political  association,  and  the 
release  of  labour  from  all  forms  of  compulsion  and 
restraint. 

The  fourth,  moved  by  the  late  W.  C.  Anderson 
— then  M.P.  for  AtterclifFe,  and  seconded  by  the 
present  writer  : 

The  Conference  calls  upon  the  constituent  bodies 
at  once  to  establish  in  every  town,  urban  and  rural 


82    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

district,  Councils  of  Workmen  and  Soldiers'  Dele- 
gates for  initiating  and  co-ordinating  working-class 
activity  in  support  of  the  policy  set  out  in  the  fore- 
going Resolution,  and  to  work  strenuously  for  a  peace 
made  by  the  people  of  the  various  countries,  and  for 
the  complete  political  and  economic  emancipation 
of  international  labour.  Such  Councils  shall  also 
watch  diligently  for  and  resist  every  encroachment 
upon  industrial  and  civil  liberty  ;  shall  give  special 
attention  to  the  position  of  women  employed  in 
industry  and  generally  support  the  work  of  the 
Trade  Unions  ;  shall  take  active  steps  to  stop  the 
exploitation  of  food  and  all  other  necessaries  of  life, 
and  shall  concern  themselves  with  questions  affecting 
the  pensions  of  wounded  and  disabled  soldiers  and 
the  maintenance  grants  payable  to  the  dependents 
of  men  serving  with  the  Army  and  Navy  ;  and  the 
making  of  adequate  provision  for  the  training  of 
disabled  soldiers  and  for  suitable  and  remunerative 
work  for  the  men  on  their  return  to  civil  life.  And, 
further,  that  the  conveners  of  this  Conference  be 
appointed  a  Provisional  Committee,  whose  duty 
shall  be  to  assist  the  formation  of  local  Workmen's 
and  Soldiers'  Councils  and  generally  to  give  effect  to 
the  policy  determined  by^this  Conference. 

In  seconding  this  Resolution  the  writer  made 
the  following  remarks,  and  the  fact  that  both 
those  and  the  terms  of  the  Resolution  were 
received  with  unqualified  enthusiasm  goes  to 
show  the  temper  of  the  Movement  at  the 
moment  and  the  remarkable  change  that  was 
rapidly  manifesting  itself : 

I  second  the  Resolution  for  what  it  suggests  and 
for  what  it  implies.  I  want  to  read  one  significant 
line,  the  line  apparently  that  has  incurred  the  wrath 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  8S 

of  the  Morning  Post  that  Anderson  refers  to — that 
the  purpose  of  this  Committee  is  to  work  "  for  the 
complete  political  and  economic  emancipation  of 
international  labour."  I  want  to  accept  the  Resolu- 
tion in  its  very  fullest  implication.  The  Resolution, 
if  it  means  anything  at  all,  means  that  which  is  con- 
tained in  the  oft-used  phrase  from  Socialistplatforms: 
the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat.  I  am  glad  that 
the  Press,  the  competent  Press,  the  subtle  Press,  the 
sinister  Press  which  represents  the  proprietary 
interests  of  this  country,  have  allowed  their  case 
against  the  first  three  Resolutions  to  go  by  default,  in 
order  to  fix  themselves  steadfastly  to  the  implica- 
tion of  the  fourth.  My  friend  Smillie  said  we  have 
come  here  to  talk  not  treason  but  reason  ;  but  I 
would  remind  Smillie,  if  he  needs  it,  that  under  the 
Defence  of  the  Realm  Regulations  reason  has  becomii^ 
treason.  We  stand  steadfastly  by  this  Resolution, 
and  we  are  not  going  to  weaken  it  by  one  jot  or 
tittle.  If  the  governing  classes  in  this  country  are 
convinced  that  you  are  going  to  give  full  and  ade- 
quate effect  to  this  Resolution,  they  will  give  effect  to 
Resolutions  one,  two  and  three  in  order  to  defeat  you. 
You  have  got  the  most  competent,  the  most  capable 
governing  class  of  the  whole  world  in  this  country. 
(A  voice  :  "  We  have  beaten  them.")  You  have  not 
beaten  them.  They  have  taken  your  own  leaders 
from  your  ranks  and  used  them  against  you. 
(Voices  :  "Not  Smilhe.")  After  they  found  that  Lord 
Devonport  was  unable  to  deal  with  the  profiteers 
of  this  country,  they  wanted  to  cover  up  their 
slimy  tracks  by  putting  Bob  Smillie  into  Grosvenor 
House.  They  will  make  every  conceivable  sacrifice 
and  concession  short  of  getting  off  your  backs. 
Mr  Tupper  demanded  that  we  should  fight  for 
indemnities  in  order  to  provide  adequate  sustenance 
for  the  dependents  of  men  who  have  lost  their  lives 
in  the  mercantile  marine.     If  you  want  restitution, 


84    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

reparation   and  guarantees,  in  God's  name  get  it 
from  the  profiteers  of  your  own  country.     We  want 
a  mandate  from  you  to  proceed  with  this  Resolution, 
and  if  there  are  many  amongst  you  who  have  got 
cold  feet  about  this,  slip  out  before  the  Resolution  is 
put.     (Laughter.)     We  want  to  break  the  reaction- 
ary influence  of  the  industrial  and  political  labour 
"  machine,"  and  this  Convention  is  our  attempt  to 
do  so.     To-day  hundreds  and  thousands  of  miners, 
engineers,  transport  workers,  railwaymen  and   the 
rest  are  represented  here  through  their  Trade  Union 
lodges.     We  want  these  men  to  go  back  to  their  con- 
stituents and  convince  them  to  use  the  power  that 
lies  in  their  hands  to  give  or  withhold  their  labour 
in  the  place  where  wealth  is  produced.     Parliament 
will    do    nothing   for   you.     Parliament   has    done 
nothing  for  you  for  the  whole  period  of  the  war. 
The  work-people  have  sacrificed  in  blood  and  treasure 
at  all  times  for  their  country,  and  the  country  is 
theirs  by  right  of  those  very  sacrifices.     They  say 
that  you  will  hamper  the  production  of  munitions, 
that  control  by  the  work-people  would  mean  that 
our  national  affairs  would  be  less  well  managed. 
Smillie  referred  to  Mr  Lloyd  George's  indictment  of 
the  old  gang  ;  but  every  word  of  Mr  Lloyd  George's 
indictment  of  the  old  gang  applies  even  more  per- 
tinently to  the  new  gang.     The  work-people  have 
been  called  upon  to  make  sacrifice  after  sacrifice  ; 
the  engineering  and  highly-skilled  occupations  have 
had  to  dilute  and  water  down  their  highly-skilled 
labour  ;  you  have  been  called  upon  to  forgo  your 
holidays  and  work  long,  tedious  hours  of  overtime. 
We  want  to  assert  our  right  to  the  ownership  and 
control  of  the  country.     We  want  to  demand  the 
representation  of  the  soldiery,   of  the  millions  of 
organised  working  people  in  the  Army,  which,  in  the 
words  of  Mr  Ben  Tillett,  contains  95  per  cent,  of  the 
working-classes  of  this  country.     We  are  competent 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  85 

to  speak  in  the  name  of  onr  own  class,  and  damn 
the  Constitution.  Had  the  Russian  revolutionaries 
been  disposed  to  be  concerned  with  the  Constitution  of 
Holy  Russia,  the  Romanoffs  would  have  been  on  the 
throne  to-day,  and  I  say  to  you  :  Have  as  little  con- 
cern for  the  British  Constitution  as  the  Russians  you 
are  praising  had  for  the  dynasty  of  the  Romanoffs. 
You  have  a  greater  right  to  speak  in  the  name  of 
our  people,  ci\Tlian  and  soldiers,  than  have  the 
gang  who  are  in  charge  of  our  political  destinies  at 
this  moment.  It  has  been  said  by  a  German  intel- 
lectual that  the  proletariat  is  the  rock  upon  which 
the  church  of  the  future  shall  be  built.  It  is  the  rock 
upon  which  the  reactionary  forces  will  break  them- 
selves. If  you  are  really  sincere  in  sending  greetings 
to  Russia,  I  say  to  you  :  "  Go  thou  and  do  like- 
wise." The  need  for  far-reaching,  for  revolutionary 
changes  is  as  great  in  this  country  as  it  was  in 
Russia.  The  work-people  have  assumed  the  direc- 
torate of  matters  in  Russia.  "  Workers  of  the  world 
unite.  You  have  nothing  to  lose  but  your  chains  : 
and  you  have  the  world  to  win." 

Looking  back,  one  sees  the  Leeds  Convention 
as  having  merely  indicative  value.  Its  promoters 
built  better  than  they  knew  foundationally. 
The  conquest  of  political  and  economic  power 
by  the  workers  of  Great  Britain  must  arise  when 
conditions  made  it  inevitable.  The  superstruc- 
ture upon  the  foundations  laid  down  at  Leeds 
will  be  erected  when  the  results  of  the  economic 
collapse  are  more  manifest. 

A  sign  and  a  portent  on  the  industrial  horizon 
was  the  Deputation  sent  to  the  Government 
in  1916,   in  the  name  of  the  Triple  Industrial 


86    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

Alliance,  to  prevent  the  importation  of  indentured 
coloured  labour  into  this  country,  nominally  and 
ostensibly  to  supplement  ithe  depleted  man- 
power, but  actually  to  reduce  the  Western 
standard  of  life,  promoted  and  achieved  by 
generations  of  working-class  efifort.  Mr  Arthur 
Henderson,  a  Labour  Minister  of  the  Coalition 
Government,  had  been  so  maladroit  as  openly 
to  advocate  the  need  and  desirability  for  this 
unwarranted  proposal.  The  Triple  Alliance  had 
considered  the  matter  in  all  its  aspects  and  had 
instructed  its  Sub-Committee  to  warn  Mr  Lloyd 
George  and  his  colleagues  that  if  they  dared  to 
proceed  with  the  introduction  of  the  contemplated 
importation  of  100,000  coloured  labourers  there 
would  most  certainly  be  the  most  drastic  form  of 
direct  action  resorted  to  by  the  three  constituent 
bodies,  namely.  Miners,  Railway -workers  and 
Transport- workers.  The  Prime  Minister  in  his 
specious  replies  to  the  Deputation  made  a  great 
to-do  of  the  apparent  colour  bar  thus  raised — we 
who  had  struggled  for  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
system  in  the  United  States,  we  who  govern  an 
Empire  of  some  four  hundred  millions  of  Indian 
subjects.  But  the  Delegation  insisted  that  the 
introduction  of  coloured  workmen  into  this 
country,  with  their  lower  standard  of  life,  would 
inevitably  tend  to  reduce  the  standard  of  life  of 
the  workers  in  Western  countries  and  especially 


THE    CHANGING   OUTLOOK  87 

of  this  country.  The  effect  of  this  threat  was 
materially  to  modify  the  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  in  fact  to  divert  the  ship-loads  of 
coloured  labourers,  who  should  have  arrived  at 
Southampton,  to  Marseilles,  where  thousands  of 
them  were  subsequently  used  behind  the  lines 
in  France.  This  was  the  reassertion  of  power 
OL  the  part  of  the  Triple  Alliance  which  had 
remained  dormant  since  its  formation  in  1914, 
immediately  preceding  the  outbreak  of  war. 

Even  the  most  blatant  jingoist  and  militarist 
had  to  admit  that  the  war  could  not  proceed 
until  the  end  of  time,  and  that  Labour  in 
particular  should  be  devoting  its  thoughts,  even 
during  the  war,  to  the  period  following  upon 
the  cessation  of  military  and  naval  hostilities. 

In  1918  Mr  G.  H.  Roberts,  who  was  then 
Minister  of  Labour,  acting  upon  Cabinet  instruc- 
tions, empanelled  a  Committee  called  the  Labour 
Resettlement  Committee,  to  discuss  and  report 
upon,  among  other  things,  the  resettlement  of 
soldiers  and  sailors,  following  upon  the  termina- 
tion of  the  war,  into  the  industries  and  occupa- 
tions from  which  they  had  been  withdraw^n. 
Clandestine  feelers  towards  peace  we  know  had 
been  made  in  1917,  when  the  Government  sent 
Representatives  to  Switzerland  to  meet  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  Austro-Hungarian  Government. 
This,  while  stoutly  denied  at  the  time,  we  now 


88    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

know  to  be  an  admitted  fact ;  so  that  it  would 
be  readily  understood  the  Government  was 
beginning  to  concern  itself  regarding  trade  and 
industrial  prospects,  and,  perchance,  insurrec- 
tionary possibilities  when  millions  of  men  were 
demobilised  and  dispersed  with  small  chance  of 
their  obtaining  immediate  employment.  Ths 
Labour  Resettlement  Committee  included  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  employers  and  the  workers  in 
the  chief  industries  of  the  country,  namely, 
building  and  constructional,  engineering,  clothing 
and  textile,  printing,  boot  and  shoe  manufactur- 
ing, iron  and  steel  production,  agriculture,  trans- 
port, railways  and  so  on.  The  terms  of  reference 
to  the  Unemployment  Insurance  Sub-Committee, 
of  which  the  writer  was  a  member,  were  as 
follows  : — 

To  consider  whether  it  is  advisable  to  make 
further  provision  by  means  of  a  contributory  scheme 
of  unemployment  against  the  possibility  of  un- 
employment during  the  period  immediately  following 
the  war,  and,  if  so,  to  make  recommendations 
with  regard  to  the  general  principles  on  which 
such  a  scheme  should  be  based,  taking  into  account 
the  existing  scheme  of  Unemployment  Insurance 
under  the  National  Insurance  (Unemployment) 
Acts,  1911  to  1916. 

After  considering  exhaustively  the  subject  of 
unemployment  likely  to  arise  on  a  large  scale 
following  the  termination  of  the  war,  the  Sub- 
Committee,    including   five    Representatives    of 


THE    CHANGLVG   OUTLOOK  89 

Labour — wliose  names  I  shall  mercifully  with- 
hold— delivered  themselves  of  a  Eeport,  in  which 
at  that  period  they  advocated  the  establishment 
of   a    compulsory    and    contributory    Insurance 
Scheme,  which  should  guarantee  to  the  workers 
the    truly    munificent    sum    of    15s.    per   week 
for   the   payment   of  a  weekly  contribution  of 
6d.    At   least   a  few  Labour    men,    who    have 
not   forgotten    their   obligations   to    their   own 
class,  believe  that  Labour  Representatives  who 
meet  with  the  employers'  Representatives  and 
Government  ofl&cials  behind  the  closed  doors  of 
Government  Departments,  should  not  lack  the 
temerity  to  say  in  private  what  they  constantly 
say  when  addressing  their  own  constituents  in 
public.     Striving  to  represent  his  own  class,  the 
writer  oflfered  a  point-blank  refusal  to  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  Sub-Committee,  and  submitted 
the  following  as  his  reasoned  refusal,  in  the  form  of 
a  Minority  Report,  his  name  standing  in  splendid 
isolation  and  he  having  to  submit  himself  to  the 
virtual  repudiation  of  his  Labour  colleagues,  who 
appeared  to  be  more  anxious  to  find  favour  in 
the  eyes  of  the  patronising  employers'  Represen- 
tatives than  to  make  a  stand  for  the  class  they 
claimed  to  represent : — 

I  find  myself  unable  and  unwilling  to  agree  to 
this  Report.  In  Clause  2,  page  1,  I  am  disposed  to 
agree  with  the  findings  of  the  Sub-Committee  that  it 


90    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

is  necessary  that  "  all  practicable  steps  "  should  be 
taken  "  to  facilitate  and  expedite  the  reorganisation 
of  industry  upon  a  peace  footing."  Prospects  of 
wide-spread  unemployment  there  undoubtedly  are. 
Millions  of  men  will  need  to  be  reabsorbed  into  the 
occupations  and  industries  from  which  they  have 
been  drafted,  owing  to  the  circumstances  and 
exigencies  of  war.  For  the  purpose  of  insuring  all 
these  employees,  both  men  and  women,  during  the 
resettlement  period  following  upon  the  resumption 
of  peace,  against  unemployment,  over  which  they 
cannot  be  held  responsible,  I  am  profoundly  opposed 
to  any  scheme  of  contributory  msurance. 

On  10th  April  I  submitted  a  Memorandum  to  the 
Main  Committee  calling  attention  to  a  Deputation  to 
the  Right  Honouralale  H.  H.  Asquith,  then  Prime 
Minister,  as  far  back  as  3rd  August  1916.  This 
Deputation  represented  the  Triple  Industrial  Alliance 
of  Miners,  RaUwaj^men  and  Transport  Workers. 
It  was  suggested  to  Mr  Asquith  "  that  all  workers, 
whether  men  or  women,  who  have  been  employed  as 
substitutes,  shall  be,  on  their  disemployment, 
provided  either  with  work  at  standard  living  rates 
or  with  full  maintenance  by  the  State."  At  the 
Trade  Union  Congress  held  at  Blackpool  a  Resolution 
was  carried  with  acclamation  demanding  "  State 
maintenance  of  the  returned  soldiers  and  displaced 
workers  pending  their  re-employment  at  a  scale 
equalling  the  rates  of  any  trade  to  which  they  were 
attached,  in  all  cases  on  the  basis  of  adequate  living 
conditions."  Speaking,  therefore,  with  the  mandate 
of  two  of  the  most  important  Labour  organisations 
in  this  or  any  other  country,  I  am  of  the  unalterable 
conviction  that  it  is  of  no  use  attemj)ting  to  patch 
up  miserably  inadequate  insurance  schemes  pro- 
viding for  such  a  beggarly  sum  as  15s.  per  week, 
such  only  to  be  paid  after  one  week's  unemployment 
has  elapsed,     I  am  well  aware  of  the  formidable 


THE   CHANGING    OUTLOOK  91 

charge  to  the  State  involved  in  the  provision  of  an 
adequate  scheme  of  non-contributory  insurance — 
but  I  am  not  personally  dismayed  at  any  such 
charge  upon  the  Imperial  revenues.  If  the  war 
contiaued  for  another  year,  we  should  have  to  meet 
the  cost  of  continuing  same,  a  sum  totalling  over 
one  thousand  millions  sterlmg.  The  modern  State, 
resourceful  as  it  has  shown  itself  to  be,  must  render 
the  mass  of  our  industrial  population  immune  at 
least  from  the  poverty  consequent  upon  unemploy- 
ment, especially  as  and  when  that  unemployment 
arises  from  causes  over  which  the  workers  them- 
selves have  little  or  no  control. 

The  whole  trend  of  the  foregoing  Report  indicates 
a  wish  merely  to  perpetuate,  with  slight  alleviations, 
the  horrible  conditions  existing  prior  to  the  war, 
wherein  wages  were  depressed  to  the  bare  sub- 
sistence level  in  consequence  of  the  ever-impending 
fear  of  unemplo3"ment.  Organised  labour  seeks 
more  and  more  to  make  the  industrial  citizen,  man 
or  woman,  free  from  the  worries  of  unemploj^ment 
and  consequent  impdverishment  to  the  point  of 
starvation.  The  resoiu-ces  of  the  State  to  meet  the 
demands  which  reason  dictates  are  practically 
without  limit.  We  have  carried  on  the  nation's 
affairs  during  the  war  with  some  seven  millions 
of  our  adult  population  either  actually  engaged  in 
war  or  preparing  the  munitions  and  material  of  war. 
Such  being  the  case,  it  is  possible  when  the  bulk  of 
these  are  returned  to  some  productive  occupations, 
that  we  can  easUy  double  the  pre-war  standards  of 
life  of  the  working-class  only  by  using  intelligent  and 
rational  methods  equitably  to  distribute  the  wealth 
produced  by  human  labour  and  human  effort. 

For  these  and  other  manifold  reasons  which  I  need 
not  dilate  upon,  I  am  unshakably  and  flatly  opposed 
to  the  scheme  proposed. 

Robert  Williams. 


92    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

Whilebeing  compelled  to  fraternise  with  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  War  Office  and  the  Admiralty, 
we  were  impressed,  among  other  things,  by  the 
precautions  adopted  in  all  the  proposals  for 
demobilisation  and  dispersal,  that  the  soldiers 
should  give  up  all  their  arms  and  ammunition 
upon  proceeding  to  the  dispersal  camps  !  The 
lessons  of  the  Russian  Revolution,  which  had 
been  materially  influenced  by  the  fact  that  the 
soldiers  of  Red  Petrograd  and  the  sailors  of  the 
Red  Navy  from  Kronstadt  proved  the  most 
formidable  force  in  creating  the  Second,  or  Soviet, 
Revolution,  had  been  well  learned,  and  every 
precaution  was  taken  by  the  authorities  in  this 
country  to  ensure  that  the  soldiers,  who  during 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  war  had  been  petted  and 
pampered  and  proclaimed 'as  the  saviours  of  their 
country,  should  be  deprived  of  any  opportunity 
of  becoming  their  own  saviours  at  the  time  of 
demobilisation.  Serious  technical  matters  were 
discussed  and  reported  upon,  and  the  whole 
question  of  the  orders  for  their  release  and  re- 
instatement in  industry,  the  use  of  the  labour 
exchanges,  the  question  of  pivotal  men  and 
kindred  matters  were  also  reported  upon  at  great 
length. 

On  another  Sub-Committee  the  writer  found 
himself  again  in  a  minority  of  one,  and  in  order 
to   demonstrate  that  never-ending   vigilance   is 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  93 

the  price  of  liberty,  proletarian  as  well  as  social 
and  economic,  it  may  be  of  some  avail  to  set  out 
the  minority  observations  made  in  reply  to  the 
Majority  Report.  An  interesting  commentary 
upon  the  attitude  of  mind  of  some  Labour 
Leaders  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  one 
colleague,  at  least,  went  so  far  as  to  suggest,  in 
the  presence  of  Sir  Reginald  Brade,  K.C.B.,  then 
Secretary  of  the  War  Office,  that  it  would  be 
better  in  the  interest  of  the  country  if  I  were 
arrested  under  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Regula- 
tions.  Again  charity  suggests  that  the  name  of 
this  estimable  gentleman,  the  Secretary  of  a  well- 
known  Federation  of  Labour,  should  be  withheld. 
The  Minority  Report  reads  as  follows  : — 

In  consequence  of  my  representations  made  at  the 
meeting  of  the  Main  Committee  (Labour  Resettle- 
ment) on  Thursday  last,  the  24th  instant,  and 
following  upon  the  suggestion  made  by  the  Chair- 
man, Lord  Burnham,  that  I  should  offer  any  objec- 
tions to  the  Report  in  the  form  of  a  Minority  Memo- 
randum, I  accordingly  do  so  as  follows  : — 

Personally,  I  totally  reject  that  portion  of  the 
Report  of  the  Montagu  Committee,  First  Report, 
paragraph  20  {a),  as  amended  by  Second  Report, 
paragraph  19  (6)  and  (c). 

This  goes  on  to  recommend  that  discharged  and 
demobilised  soldiers  shall  be  entitled  to  "a  free 
unemployment  insurance  policy,"  assuring  "  pay- 
ment of  unemployment  benefit  to  provide  for  a  flat 
rate  of  10s.  a  week  as  a  muiimum,  with  power  to 
the  Ministry  of  Labour,  on  the  recommendation  of 


94    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

the  Labour  Resettlement  Committee,  and  with  the 
consent  of  the  Treasury,  to  increase  the  flat  rate  if 
the  circumstances  should  be  deemed  to  make  it 
necessary." 

I  share  the  opinions  of  the  Sub-Committee  when 
they  state  "  that  a  flat  rate  of  10s.  a  week  to  be 
inadequate "  ;  10s.  a  week  with  the  purchasing 
power  as  in  pre-war  times  was  merely  a  beggarly 
allowance  for  any  adult.  Various  decisions  of 
important  Labour  organisations — the  Trade  Union 
Congress,  the  Labour  Party  and  the  greater  and 
lesser  Trade  Unions  have  called  repeatedly  for  the 
Unemployment  Benefit  to  be  such  as  to  afford  the 
standard  of  life  comparable  with  that  of  the  industry 
or  occupation  with  which  the  discharged  soldier 
was  associated.  The  State,  therefore,  should  provide 
remunerative  employment  or  adequate  subsistence 
allowance.  In  paragraph  9,  a  reference  was  made 
to  the  Chelmsford  Local  Advisory  Committee  and  a 
Resolution  passed  by  that  body.  This  Committee 
urges  "  that  full  pay  and  allowances  should  be 
continued  until  the  recipient  had  been  provided 
with  permanent  work  at  which  he  could  earn  an 
adequate  living." 

The  Majority  Report  goes  on  to  say  :  "  This 
proposal  is,  in  our  view,  clearly  impracticable." 
In  my  view,  and  in  the  view  of  organised  labour, 
this  proposal  is  not  only  practicable  but  imperative 
if  the  country  is  to  stave  off  something  approaching 
universal  insurrection.  Further,  during  the  period 
of  re-adaptation  from  mflitary  service  to  trade  and 
industrial  employment,  many  soldiers  and  saflors 
will  find  it  impossible  to  revert  immediately  to  their 
customary  manual  and  physical  efficiency.  In 
those  cases,  I  am  of  opinion  that  some  elastic 
methods  must  be  devised  that  where  discharged 
and  demobilised  soldiers  and  sailors  are  unable  to 
work  full  time  in  consequence  of  the  nerve  and 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  95 

body-shattering  effects  of  war,  they  must  be  partially 
assisted  by  under-employment  grants. 

In  paragraph  10,  "  The  use  of  the  Exchanges," 
the  Majority  Report  states  :  "In  both  cases,  the 
right  to  benefit  will  depend  on  the  applicant  not 
having  refused  suitable  employment."  Herein  I 
would  insert  a  proviso  that  any  discharged  soldier 
should  be  deemed  to  have  the  right  to  unemploy- 
ment benefit  when  the  rates  and  conditions  of 
employment  are  not  the  Trade  Union  or  standard 
ones  in  the  industry  or  occupation,  and  that  no 
such  employment  offered  shall  be  arising  from  or 
connected  with  any  labour  or  Trade  Union  dispute. 
I  share  the  opinions  of  the  majority  when  they  say  : 
"  We  are,  of  course,  aware  that  the  conduct  of  the 
Exchanges  in  the  past  has  been  the  subject  of  a 
certain  amount  of  criticism."  This  criticism,  from 
the  view  of  organised  labour,  has  been  well  merited. 
In  the  case  of  dock  and  waterside  labour,  where 
little  or  no  use  has  been  made  hitherto  of  the  Labour 
Exchanges  by  emploj^ers  or  by  work  people,  I 
trust  that  the  system  in  operation  before  the  war 
may  be  adhered  to.  This,  of  course,  refers  to  the 
methods  of  "  taking-on,"  rather  than  the  casual 
nature  of  the  occupation. 

Regarding  the  matter  of  reinstatement  dealt  with 
in  Clause  11,  I  cannot  accept  the  decision  of  the 
Sub-Committee  I  find  myself  cordially  in  agree- 
ment with  the  recommendation  of  the  Second 
Interim  Report,  commencing  '"  We  recommend." 
Whatever  the  difficulty,  it  is  incumbent  upon  the 
State  to  provide  re-employment  for  those  who  have 
left  their  normal  employment  to  take  service  with 
the  colours.  The  alternative,  where  there  are  two 
or  more  applicants  for  the  same  position  in  conse- 
quence of  successive  enlistment  or  enforced  calling- 
up,  is  to  provide  every  returned  soldier  or  sailor 
with  his  old  job  or  -^-ith  full  maintenance  at  the 


96    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

Trade  Union  or  standard  rates  as  if  he  were  employed. 
In  paragraph  17,  deaUng  with  the  order  of  release, 
this  is  a  matter  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  War 
Office,  and  its  Department  of  demobilisation.  There 
will  naturally  be  a  widespread  desire  on  the  part  of 
the  armed  forces  to  return  to  civilian  life,  subject, 
of  course,  to  military  consideration. 

It  appears  that  those  who  have  been  prisoners  of 
war,  or  those  who  have  been  longest  in  the  respective 
services,  either  Army  or  Navy,  have  the  first  claim 
for  a  return  to  civilian  life.  My  own  opinion  is, 
that  as  rapidly  as  the  men  can  be  demobilised  and 
dispersed  this  should  be  done.  There  is  no  reason 
why  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  should  be  main- 
tained in  military  encampments  awaiting  dispersal, 
especially  when  they  could  relieve  the  State  of 
certain  responsibilities  by  returning  to  their  homes 
with  their  full  pay,  separation  allowances,  and  the 
cost  of  maintenance  as  an  offset  to  the  total  cost  of 
maintenance  now  in  operation. 

There  is  a  widespread  fear  in  the  minds  of  organ- 
ised labovir  that  an  unduly  large  army  will  be  main- 
tained in  this  country  for  no  other  purpose  than 
of  being  held  in  readiness  for  the  suppression  of 
industrial  disputes.  Everything  possible  must  be 
done  to  reassure  the  working-class,  and  the  soldiery 
who  have  been  trade  unionists  themselves,  that  the 
Government  are  not  contemplating  the  use  of  any 
members  of  the  armed  forces  who  have  risked  their 
lives  abroad,  to  suppress  genuine  and  well-considered 
attempts  of  organised  labour  at  home  to  improve 
their  economic  status  in  some  measure  comparable 
with  the  sacrifices  they  have  made  in  the  military 
and  civilian  service. 

Robert  Williams. 
29th  October  1918. 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  97 

The  two  documents  from  which  these  extracts 
have  been  made  are  Official  Governmental  publi- 
cations marked  M.  1114  and  D.R.  3  respectively. 
Although  every  effort  was  made  to  utilise  His 
Majesty's  Stationery  Office  as  a  means  of  publi- 
cation of  Labour  and  working-class  propaganda, 
the  Ministry  determined  to  prevent  these  receiv- 
ing wide  publicity  by  marking  both  documents 
Confidential. 

Well  might  the  workers'  outlook  take  revolu- 
tionary tendencies  during  those  six  years  of  war 
and  its  aftermath.  On  every  occasion  upon 
which  the  Government  were  beset  with  difficulties 
an  approach  was  made  to  the  leaders  of  the 
Labour  Movement  to  assist  the  Government  in 
extricating  themselves.  When  the  shell-shortage 
occurred,  all  those  who  were  credited  with  the 
possession  of  superior  brains  found  themselves  in 
a  hopeless  muddle,  and  highly-skilled  labour  in 
the  engineering  and  metal-working  trades  was 
called  upon  to  dilute  its  technical  capacity  as  the 
distillers  diluted  their  whisky.  Opportunities 
were  provided  for  the  entry  of  lesser-skilled  and 
unskilled  men  and  women,  by  short-term  periods 
of  training,  in  order  that  the  supply  of  highly- 
skilled  technical  labour  might  be  eked  out  in  the 
most  suitable  manner. 

When  transport  facilities,  coastal  and  overseas, 
were  being  seriously  imperilled  by  the  havoc  of 


98    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

the  submarine  campaign,  seamen  and  firemen, 
dockers  and  stevedores,  warehousemen  and  porters, 
were  urged  to  intensify  their  labour  efforts  in  order 
to  surmount  an  urgent  and  pressing  difficulty. 
As  the  work  of  bringing  in  the  necessary  food 
and  raw  material  became  increasingly  difficult, 
agricultural  workers,  men  and  women,  were 
urged  to  apply  themselves  more  diligently  to 
the  work  of  food  production  ;  and  town-dwellers 
were  pressed  to  utilise  every  inch  of  available 
soil  to  cultivate  small  allotments. 

When  Liberal  and  Tory  statesmen  were  forced 
to  display  their  mental  bankruptcy  in  meeting 
pressing  needs  occasioned  by  the  war,  Labour  was 
called  in  to  assume  its  share  of  responsibility 
for  the  government  of  the  country.  I  was  present 
at  most  of  the  Conferences  convened  by  Mr  Lloyd 
George  following  upon  the  disclosure  of  the  shell- 
shortage,  and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring 
that  Mr  Arthur  Henderson  did  more — infinitely 
more — than  the  Prime  Minister  to  promote  the 
creation  of  adequate  machinery  for  the  rapid  pro- 
duction of  increased  supplies  of  high  explosives 
and  other  munitions  and  materials  of  war. 
Whether  this  is  to  be  placed  to  Henderson's 
credit  must  depend  on  the  outlook  of  the  reader. 

In  order  to  allay  the  urirest  and  increasing 
misgivings  in  the  minds  of  the  workers,  every 
Jack-in- ofiice  declared  that  Labour  must  never 


THE   CHANGING    OUTLOOK  99 

be  allowed  to  sink  back  to  its  pre-war  status,  but 
that,  in  consequence  of  the  measure  of  the  sacri- 
fices which  Britain's  sons  had  made  in  the  field 
and  in  their  civilian  duties  at  home,  Britain 
owed  it  to  herself,  in  the  era  of  prosperity  which 
was  to  follow  the  war,  to  give  those  sons  and 
daughters  conditions  of  life  worthy  of  their  sacri- 
fices. Conferences  of  employers  and  employed 
met  again  and  again,  and  in  co-operation  with 
heads  of  Government  Departments,  and  these 
meetings  ofttimes  resolved  themselves  into  com- 
mittees of  mutual  admiration,  each  section  vying 
with  the  other  in  declaring  that  Labour's  status 
in  the  future  must  be  equal  to  .Labour's  power 
and  responsibility  in  the  present. 

The  Russian  Revolution  had  forced  the  pro- 
prietary classes  to  realise  the  insecurity  of  their 
tenure  of  power,  and  the  one  hope  of  the  soldiers 
was  that  they  should  return  to  enjoy  the  princely 
wages  which  they  were  informed  the  workers 
were  earning  at  home.  The  active  and  insurgent 
spirits  of  the  rank  and  file  placed  all  the  vapour- 
ings  of  the  employers  and  the  bemused  trade 
union  ofiicials  at  their  proper  valuation,  and 
resolved  to  continue  more  implacably  than  ever 
the  age-long  fight  for  material  improvement. 

For  some  time,  preceding  the  Armistice,  as  I 
have  previously  shown,  the  Minister  of  Labour 
had  adopted  a  plan  to  introduce  a  compulsory  and 


100    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

contributory  unemployment  insurance  scheme 
providing  for  the  "splendid"  benefit  of  15s.  per 
week.  In  order  to  show  how  men's  minds  are 
moved  by  national  and  international  occurrences, 
let  me  indicate  the  inner  significance  of  the 
kaleidoscopic  series  of  events  at  that  particular 
period.  The  rumblings  of  revolt  had  forced  the 
abdication  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm  II.,  and  signs  were 
not  wanting  that  the  German  Kevolution  would 
become  as  definitely  proletarian  in  character  as 
had  the  Russian.  Soldiers  home  on  leave  had 
made  a  violent  demonstration  at  Folkestone,  and 
had  refused  to  return  to  their  units  abroad,  and  if 
the  War  Office  had  not  been  prompt  in  granting 
the  men's  full  requests  for  prompt  demobilisa- 
tion, this  would  have  given  rise  to  the  gravest 
and  most  far-reaching  complications  throughout 
the  whole  of  the  Western  Front.  Note,  now, 
the  celerity  of  the  Government  in  offering  much 
more  substantial  payments  to  discharged  and 
demobilised  soldiers  and  sailors,  and  disemployed 
civilian  workers,  than  had  been  provided  for  by 
the  Ministry  of  Labour  Insurance  Scheme.  Mr 
Winston  Churchill,  then  occupying  the  position 
of  Minister  of  Munitions,  announced  that  muni- 
tion workers  immediately  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment on  the  signing  of  the  Armistice  would  be 
entitled  to  29s.  per  week  for  men,  with  an  addi- 
tional  allowance   for   dependent   children,    and 


THE   CHANGING   OUTLOOK  101 

25s.  per  week  for  women.  This  was,  moreover, 
on  a  non-contributory  basis.  Revolution  was  in 
the  air,  and  revolutions  are  infectious  things. 
Observe,  moreover,  that  the  individual  who  was 
responsible  for  this  project  was  the  same  gentle- 
man who  started  the  12j  per  cent,  increase  for 
plain-time  munition  workers,  which  subsequently 
went  the  whole  ambit  of  Great  Britain's  entire 
industry.  If  the  reader  will  cast  his  mind  back 
to  the  embittered  controversy  which  followed 
the  application  of  the  12|^  per  cent,  principle,  it 
will  be  remembered  that  this  occupied  the  atten- 
tion of  the  employed  classes  for  well  over  six 
months.  It  is  now  a  notorious  fact  that  although 
Mr  Churchill's  colleague  in  the  War  Cabinet,  Mr 
G.  N.  Barnes,  hotly  denounced  the  concession  of 
the  12|  per  cent,  at  the  time  it  was  made  by  Mr 
Churchill,  but  subsequently  made  a  halting,  and 
equivocating,  apology  for  what  he  had  said,  the 
present  War  Minister  at  the  time  made  it  his 
proud  boast  that  although  he  had  involved  the 
country  in  the  expenditure  of  many  millions  of 
pounds  by  the  concession,  he  had  turned  the 
minds  and  attention  of  the  working-class  from 
the  matter  and  the  manner  of  the  prosecution  of 
the  war. 

Having  tided  themselves  over  the  most  trouble- 
some period,  the  Government  announced  little 
by  little  the  cutting-down  of  the  unemployment 


102    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

donation,  both  for  discharged  service  men  and 
disemployed  civilians,  and,  having  discovered 
that  revolutionary  possibilities  of  a  dramatic 
character  are  becoming  apparently  less  and 
less,  they  are  determined,  in  the  teeth  of 
Labour  opposition  in  Parliament  and  in  the 
country,  to  reintroduce  their  precious  Unemploy- 
ment Insurance  Scheme,  based  upon  a  fourpenny 
contribution  with  a  benefit  of  15s.  per  week. 

The  soldiers  and  sailors  are  now  back  at  their 
workaday  affairs,  that  is,  when  they  have  work 
to  do ;  but  trickery  and  double-dealing,  such  as 
that  which  has  been  played  upon  the  work- 
people, will  have  certain  effect,  ultimately  if  not 
immediately.  It  can  therefore  be  urged  and 
repeated  that  the  temper  of  the  militant  section 
of  the  proletariat  became  enormously  more  revo- 
lutionary in  consequence  of  the  circumstances 
created  by  the  war  upheaval.  It  may  be  that 
the  militant  leavening  in  the  vast  proletarian 
lump  will  not  have  due  effect  for  some  time  to 
come.  No  divinely  inspired  leader,  no  one 
capable  of  gauging  the  forces  making  for  insurrec- 
tionary possibilities,  no  one  with  even  the  most 
clarified  outlook  upon  industrial  and  economic 
history,  no  body  of  men,  however  militant  in 
themselves,  can  create  a  revolution  until  there  is 
economic  and  moral  preparedness.  This  chapter 
is  concluded  by  the  foregoing  indication  of  all 


THE   CHANGING    OUTLOOK  103 

those  tendencies  which  help  to  create  the  revolu- 
tionary possibilities,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  economic  pressure  of  events  operating 
during  the  war  has  performed  an  imponderable 
and  incalculable  volume  of  work  in  preparing  for 
the  supersession  of  capitalism  by  a  system  based 
upon  the  social  ownership  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction, distribution  and  exchange. 

The  next  chapter,  The  Newer  Outlook,  will 
deal  with  world-wide  possibilities  as  we  are 
confronted  by  them  to-day,  and  as  they  have 
steadily  developed  since  the  Armistice. 


CHAPTER   III. 

The  Newer  Outlook. 

The  Armistice  of  11th  November  1918  will  be 
looked  upon  as  a  date  as  significant  in  the 
industrial  and  political  history  of  this  country  as 
4th  August  1914,  the  date  of  the  formal  declara- 
tion of  war  against  Germany.  The  resumption 
of  peace,  on  the  whole,  raised  greater  problems 
than  the  outbreak  of  war.  The  period  following 
the  signing  of  the  Armistice  hastened  the  process 
of  disillusionment,  and  the  returning  soldiers  and 
sailors  on  coming  again  into  contact  with  the 
civilian  population  and  with  a  growing  realisa- 
tion of  the  underlying  facts  and  circumstances 
of  the  workaday  affairs  to  which  they  had  for  so 
long  been  strangers,  realised  the  pretentiousness 
of  the  Wilsonian  creed  of  making  the  world 
"safe  for  democracy."  For,  so  far  as  it  could 
be  done,  every  conceivable  device,  every  cunning 
ingenuity  in  the  minds  of  the  master  class,  every 
suggestion,  suppression,  implication  and  distor- 
tion by  the  slaves  of  the  Press  which  served 
capitalism,  was  employed  to  make  the  world 
safe  for  plutocracy. 

The  Prime  Minister,  a  political  weathercock 

104 


THE    NEWER    OUTLOOK  105 

himself,  accurately  poised  and  capable  of  judging 
the  direction  from  which  the  wind  w^as  blowing, 
hastened  to  snatch  his  momentary  victory  at 
the  polls,  before  the  process  of  disillusionment 
and  awakening  had  travelled  too  far.  He  is  now 
the  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  victory.  He  is 
"  The  Man  who  Won  the  War."  Susceptible  to 
the  pressure  of  events,  as  his  facile  mind  un- 
doubtedly is,  Mr  Lloyd  George  flits  first  from 
one  theory  and  then  to  another.  When  he  was 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  he  told  us  that  the 
war  would  be  won  by  "  silver  bullets,"  meaning, 
of  course,  financial  resources.  That  was  the 
impression  conveyed  to  his  alert  but  superficial 
mind  w^hile  his  time  was  occupied  at  the 
Treasury.  Proceeding  from  there  to  the  newly- 
created  Ministry  of  Munitions,  he  receives 
another  urge.  Now  it  is  a  war,  not  of  money 
or  financial  resources,  but  of  mechanical  and 
engineering  resources.  It  is,  in  fact,  not  a 
financiers'  w^ar,  but  an  engineers'  war.  Every 
appeal  was  made  to  employers  and  employed  in 
the  various  industries  providing  munitions  and 
the  lethal  weapons  of  war  to  accelerate  output. 
Again  with  that  susceptibility  of  the  Noncon- 
formist conscience  and  willingness  to  listen  to 
an  appeal  in  the  form  of  a  "  higher  call,"  his 
energies  are  transferred  from  the  Ministry  of 
Munitions  to  the  War  Oftice ;  and  now  money 


106    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

and  mechanical  apparatus  are  forgotten  in  the 
insatiable  demand  for  more  and  more  men  to 
repair  what  the  militarists  callously  term  the 
"wastage"  of  human  material.  "Everybody 
who  is  able  to  crawl  must  get  into  khaki,"  is  the 
echo  of  the  War  Minister's  sentiments,  echoed 
in  the  bleating  voice  of  Colonel  Repington,  much 
like  that  of  the  fraudulent  tipster  of  the  race- 
course who  gives  every  runner  with  the  certainty 
of  having  thus  tipped  the  winner. 

No  one  could  possibly  deny  his  own  claim 
that  Mr  Lloyd  George  is  endowed  with  political 
sagacity.  The  politician  of  yesteryear  who 
"  Limehoused  "  to  his  heart's  content,  and  told 
us  so  eloquently  that  a  Duke  cost  more  than  a 
Dreadnought,  and  whose  one  desire  was  to  make 
political  capital  out  of  the  material  poverty  of 
the  multitude  of  the  common  people,  before 
he  accepted  the  higher  call  of  statesmanlike 
responsibility,  now  realised  that  those  who  had 
been  duped  before  by  his  specious  pledges  and 
promises  could  be  duped  yet  again  by  the 
horrible  spectre  of  Bolshevism,  which  was  said 
to  be  looming  over  Central  and  Eastern  Europe. 
Following  the  course  of  his  sometime  Radical 
predecessor,  Mr  Joseph  Chamberlain,  he  showed 
how  he  could  out-Herod  Herod  and  serve  the 
great  capitalist  interests  represented  in  the 
Coalition,  more  effectively  than  Mr  Chamberlain, 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  107 

who  transferred  the  balance  of  British  political 
power  from  Manchester  to  Birmingham.  Even 
his  Lal)our  friends — Henderson  and  a  number 
of  others — who  had  been  faithful  henchmen 
during  the  war,  were  opposed  at  the  polls  by 
the  possessors  of  the  fraudulent  Coalition  coupon. 
Faint-hearted  Labour  men,  pacifist  Liberals  who 
had  gravitated  towards  the  LL.P.  and  the  Labour 
Party,  were  alleged  to  be  wreckers  of  homes  and 
would-be  destroyers  of  happy  firesides.  Amiable 
reformists  who  resisted  war,  just  as  they  had 
condemned  strikes,  were  held  to  be  supporters 
of  the  policy  falsely  attributed  to  the  Soviet 
Government,  of  "  nationalising  women  "  :  that 
Soviet  Government  which  has  abolished  pros- 
titution in  Eussia,  while  the  morality  of 
Piccadilly  and  the  West  End  generally  is  the 
promiscuity  of  the  poultry-yard.  Playing  upon 
the  lingering  credulity  of  the  soldiers  who  still 
remained  in  the  various  theatres  of  war — and 
who  could  know  nothing  of  the  atmosphere  of 
the  political  contests  taking  place  in  the  con- 
stituencies to  which  their  votes  were  forwarded 
— and  resorting  to  every  mean  and  contemptible 
subterfuge  that  his  own  and  his  colleagues* 
minds  could  devise,  Mr  Lloyd  George  felt  con- 
fident of  victory,  and  even  his  wildest  expecta- 
tions were  more  than  realised  by  the  sweeping 
return  of  the  place-hunters  and  gerrymanderers 


108    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

of  our  present  Government.  Under  any  system 
of  proportional  representation  the  forces  of 
Labour,  on  the  votes  cast  in  its  favour,  would 
have  been  entitled  to  nearly  two  hundred  seats 
in  Parliament,  but  in  consequence  of  an  anti- 
quated political  system  which  is  said  to  be 
democratic.  Labour  was  denied  three-fourths  of 
its  electoral  influence. 

Labour  is  therefore  compelled  to  turn  its  mind 
more  and  more  to  industrial  or  direct  action,  as 
against  what  is  termed  constitutional  action.  As 
has  been  shown  already,  a  strong,  intelligent  and 
self-reliant  worker,  possessed  of  the  elements  of 
political  teaching  and  economic  knowledge,  is 
a  very  formidable  influence  in  his  trade  union 
branch,  or  lodge  ;  and  the  active  spirits  of  the 
rank  and  file  were  fully  determined  that  what 
they  could  not  do  with  the  left  hand  of  politics 
they  would  do  with  the  right  hand  of  industrial 
action. 

Labour  has  been  compelled  to  realise  from 
age-long  experience  that  when  men  are  plentiful 
and  jobs  are  scarce,  men  become  cheap  and  wages 
fall  below  the  usually  accepted  level  of  subsist- 
ence. Some  six  million  soldiers  and  sailors  were 
to  be  demobilised  and  a  million  and  half  men  and 
women  transferred  from  the  munitions  industries 
in  which  they  had  found  employment  during  the 
war.     Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent  made 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  109 

glorious  summer,  said  the  employers  ;  with  an 
abundance  of  labour  we  can  reasonably  look 
forward  to  a  rapid  reduction  of  wages  in  conse- 
quence of  the  pressure  of  the  unemployed  upon 
the  existing  volume  of  employment.  No,  said 
Labour ;  and  without  much  regard  to  the  con- 
stitutional policy  urged  upon  it  by  many  Labour 
leaders,  the  effective  w^ay  of  minimising  the 
imminent  effects  of  widespread  unemployment 
is  appreciably  to  reduce  the  hours  of  labour  and 
thus  absorb  the  men  returning;  from  the  various 
theatres  of  war  to  industry.  On  the  Clyde  and 
in  Belfast  a  rank  and  file  movement  was  com- 
menced in  the  engineering  and  shipbuilding 
industries  to  reduce  the  hours  of  labour  to  forty 
per  week,  and  every  credit  is  due  to  the  insur- 
gent spirit  manifested — even  if  criticism  of  the 
methods  be  oflered — and  the  magnificent  stand 
made  for  some  three  or  four  weeks.  Without 
strike  pay,  and  largely  discountenanced  by  their 
trade  union  executives,  receiving  little  or  no 
support  from  the  workers  of  England  and  Wales, 
these  men  fought  manfully  on,  and  there  could 
be  no  gainsaying  the  fact  that  the  forty-seven 
hours  ultimately  established  was  conceded  because 
of  the  brave  fight  made  for  the  forty  hours. 

The  Miners'  Federation,  the  militant  section 
of  which  had  for  years  demanded  a  six-hour  day 
and  a  five-day  week,  now  launched  its  policy, 


110    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

but  in  this  instance  with  the  concurrence  of  their 
ablest  leaders  like  Smillie,  Hodges,  Hartshorn, 
Herbert  Smith,  and  in  fact  with  the  active  and 
loyal  support  of  most  of  their  officials.  Realising 
the  danger  of  the  then  existing  position,  Mr 
Lloyd  George,  who  had  condemned  and  vilified 
the  workers'  Representatives  at  the  polls  two 
months  before,  was  now  on  his  knees  begging 
the  trade  unionists  and  the  employers  to  settle 
their  differences  amicably  through  the  hastily - 
empanelled  National  Industrial  Conference.  Who 
can  forget  the  plaintive  appeal  made  by  the 
Premier,  speaking  with  sobs  in  his  voice,  asking 
that  all  eff'orts  possible  should  be  made,  and 
promising  that  all  should  be  done  to  make  this 
"  a  country  fit  for  heroes  to  live  in  "  ?  The  Triple 
Industrial  Alliance,  however,  comprising  between 
a  million  and  a  half  and  two  million  mine 
workers,  railway  workers  and  transport  workers, 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  body,  pre- 
dicting that  the  promises  it  suggested  were 
no  more  likely  of  fulfilment  than  the  abundant 
pledges  of  social  improvement  made  by  Mr  George 
and  his  paymasters — the  landlords,  financiers,  and 
great  capitalists  of  the  Coalition  Government — 
on  many  previous  occasions.  The  Sub-Committee 
of  the  Triple  Industrial  Alliance,  while  the  miners 
were  in  the  thick  of  their  campaign  for  an  increase 
of  three  shillings  per  shift  advance  in  wages,  and 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  111 

the  reduction  of  hours  to  six  per  shift,  together 
with  the  Nationalisation  of  the  Mines,  would  not 
countenance  any  suggestion  that  participation  on 
their  part  in  the  work  of  the  Joint  Industrial 
Conference  should  be  used  as  a  sort  of  lightning- 
conductor  for  the  clamorous  pressure  of  the 
demands  of  the  miners  and  other  militant  workers. 
It  might,  therefore,  be  useful  to  quote  here  the 
speech  which,  on  27th  February  1919,  Mr  J.  H. 
Thomas  was  directed  by  the  Sub-Committee  to 
make  on  behalf  of  the  threefold  Alliance  of  Mine 
Workers,  Railway  Workers  and  Transport  Workers 
to  the  National  Industrial  Conference,  after  the 
delivery  of  which  the  Representatives  of  the  three 
organisations  withdrew  from  the  Conference  : — 

I  have  been  deputed  to  make  the  following 
observations  for  and  on  behalf  of  the  Executive 
Committees  of  the  Miners'  Federation  of  Great 
Britain,  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen  and  the 
National  Transport  Workers'  Federation.  The 
Government,  through  the  Ministry  of  Labour,  have 
asked  the  officials  of  the  Trade  L^nion  Movement 
to  put  before  the  Government  and  the  Country  any 
views  which  the  Representatives  may  have  as  to 
the  causes  of  the  present  unrest,  and  as  to  any 
remedies  or  suggestions  they  may  have  to  offer. 

In  the  judgment  of  my  colleagues  and  m3'self, 
the  organised  workers  of  Great  Britain  have  made  up 
their  minds  to  procure  for  themselves  an  increasing 
share  of  the  wealth  which  their  labour  has  produced 
and  produces.  The  workers,  moreover,  and  I  speak 
more  especially  for  the  members  of  our  threefold 
organisation,  are  determined  to  shorten  materially 


112    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

the  hours  of  labour  in  their  respective  industries. 
They  are  dissatisfied  with  a  system  of  society  wliich 
treats  their  labour-power  as  a  mere_^ commodity  to  be 
bought,  sold  and  used  as  though  they  were  machine- 
like units  in  the  process  of  wealth,  production  and 
distribution  ;  and  they  therefore  demand  that  they 
shall  become  real  partners  in  industry,  jointly 
sharing  in  the  determination  of  working  conditions 
and  of  management.  Labour  becomes  increasingly 
alive  to  its  sovereign  power,  and  will  shirk  no 
responsibilities,  and  will  be  denied  none  of  its  rights 
and  privileges. 

Regarding  the  prevailing  unrest,  this  must  be 
attributed  to  varied  and  manifold  causes,  probably 
the  foremost  and  chief  cause  being  the  scandalous 
profiteering  deliberately  countenanced  by  theGovern- 
ment  during  the  period  of  the  war.  The  Excess 
Profits  Tax  has  not  mitigated  the  effect  of  profiteer- 
ing in  the  slightest  degree,  its  only  use  being  to 
make  the  profiteers  the  tax-collecting  agents  of 
the  Treasury  (where  the  incidence  of  the  Tax  has  not 
been  avoided),  and  to  pass  on  the  burden  of  paying 
for  the  war  from  the  shoulders  of  the  rich  to  the 
general  body  of  the  community,  and  all  too  frequently 
upon  the  shoulders  of  the  very  poor,  including  the 
dependents  of  soldiers  and  sailors. 

It  will  probably  be  urged  that  after  the  losses  and 
ravages  of  four  and  a  half  years  of  war,  with  its 
tremendous  waste  of  the  wealth-producing  energies 
of  our  young  and  virile  manhood,  the  nation  is 
unable  to  grant  the  material  advancement  in  the 
lives  and  working  conditions  which  the  workers 
are  increasingly  demanding.  The  nation's  wealth- 
power  cannot  be  expressed  in  money  values.  The 
only  limit  to  be  placed  upon  our  collective  capacity 
to  produce  and  equitably  share  abounding  wealth 
is  the  limit  of  our  collective  labour-power. 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  113 

The  experience  of  the  war  proves  that  never 
before  has  the  nation  been  asked  to  co-ordinate 
measures  and  devise  means  to  speed  up  production, 
and,  despite  all  the  greed  and  cupidity  of  the  vested 
interests,  we  have  come  out  of  the  supreme  trial  of 
the  war  in  such  a  way  as  belied  all  the  prophecies 
of  the  political  economists. 

Realising  these  facts  and  the  inferences  therefrom, 
the  workers  have  resolutely  set  their  faces  towards 
some  order  of  society  which  will  improve  their  lives 
and  conditions  in  accord  with  the  new  valuation 
they  set  upon  themselves.  No  longer  are  they 
prepared  to  content  themselves  with  every  wage 
advance  being  thrust  upon  the  consumer,  and  con- 
sequently cancelling  every  improvement  mstantly 
and  automatically.  Rent,  interest  and  profit  are 
not  inviolable  :  statesmen  of  every  party  must  make 
up  their  minds  that  there  is  going  to  be  a  drastic 
change.  Wise  men  will  allow  and  provide  for  it. 
The  others  will  be  convinced  only  by  the  compelling 
power  of  events.  In  every  country  we  see  world- 
shaking  changes.  We  in  this  country  may  be  able 
to  see  these  changes  brought  about  peacefully  and 
orderly.  The  present  discontents  are  not  the  work 
of  agitators.  They  are  the  product  of  age-long 
experience  accelerated  by  the  developments  of  the 
war.  We  therefore  ask  the  Government  to  use  its 
influence  in  the  direction  indicated.  The  organised 
work-people  want  redress  for  their  manifold  griev- 
ances, and,  moreover,  they  want  something  like 
immediate  redress. 

The  reader  who  has  proceeded  so  far  must  be 
assisted  by  further  detailed  and  chronological 
information  regarding  the  march  of  events  since 
the  promotion  of  the  National  Industrial  Con- 
ference in  February  1919.     Oh  that  the  entire 


114    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

working-class  might  take  long  views  and  culti- 
vate long  memories  !  Immediately  preceding  the 
date  of  the  Industrial  Conference  the  Miners' 
Federation  had  launched  their  twofold  wages 
and  hours  programme  ;  the  Dock  and  Waterside 
section  of  the  Transport  Workers'  Federation  were 
in  the  midst  of  their  negotiations  to  secure  a  forty- 
four  hours'  week,  and  the  Railwaymen,  despite 
the  Government's  promise  through  the  mouth  of 
Mr  Churchill  during  the  recent  General  Election, 
to  introduce  a  forty-eight  hours'  week  on  the 
railways,  were  unable  to  come  to  any  satisfactory 
arrangement.  These  three  partners  in  the  Triple 
Industrial  Alliance  had  entered  into  a  solemn  and 
binding  compact  that  there  should  be  no  definite 
and  final  settlement  of  the  programme  of  any  one 
section  unless  and  until  there  was  a  certainty 
of  a  complete  and  all-round  concession  of  the 
demands  of  all  three,  this  being  ordinarily  intel- 
ligent tactics  on  the  part  of  the  leaders,  fully 
approved,  and,  in  fact,  encouraged  in  every  way 
by  delegates  of  the  rank  and  file.  It  was  in  the 
midst  of  such  an  atmosphere,  charged  with  the 
most  far-reaching  possibilities,  that  Mr  Lloyd 
George  and  Sir  Robert  Home  promoted  their 
specious  National  Joint  Industrial  Council. 

The  rapidly  moving  events  have  since  abun- 
dantly demonstrated  the  wisdom  of  the  component 
parts  of  the  Triple  Industrial  Alliance  in  remaining 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  115 

outside  the  National  Joint  Council  of  Employers' 
and  Workers'  Representatives.  The  Government 
were  obviously  anxious  to  propitiate  the  forces 
of  organised  Labour  by  promises,  platitudes  and 
pledges.  Mr  Lloyd  George  made  a  speech  of 
great  length  in  order  to  show  how  concerned 
were  he  and  his  colleagues  to  give  effect  to  his 
political  promises  to  make  Britain  a  country  fit 
for  heroes,  but  his  mind,  and  the  minds  of  those 
with  whom  he  was  associated,  were  constantly 
set  in  the  direction  of  once  more  deluding  the 
Trade  Unionists  and  of  destroying  their  ever- 
increasing  militancy.  After  a  good  deal  of  speech- 
making  and  with  an  abundance  of  good- will  on  the 
part  of  the  Representatives  of  the  employees,  other 
than  Miners,  Railwaymen  and  Transport  Workers, 
the  following  Resolution  was  passed  : — 

That  this  Conference  bemg  of  the  opinion  that  any 
preventable  dislocation  of  industry  is  always  to  be 
deplored,  and,  in  the  present  critical  period  of 
reconstruction,  might  be  disastrous  to  the  interests 
of  the  Nation,  and  thinking  that  every  effort  should 
be  made  to  remove  legitimate  grievances,  and 
promote  harmony  and  good-will,  resolves  to  appoint 
a  Joint  Committee,  consisting  of  equal  numbers 
of  employers  and  workers,  men  and  women,  to- 
gether with  a  Chairman  appointed  by  the  Govern- 
ment, to  consider  and  report  to  a  further  meeting  of 
this  Conference  on  the  causes  of  the  present  unrest 
and  the  steps  necessary  to  safeguard  and  promote 
the  best  interests  of  employers,  work-people  and  the 
State,  and  especially  to  consider  : — 


116        THE   NEW   LABOUR   OUTLOOK 

1.  Questions  relating  to  Hours,  Wages  and  General 

Conditions  of  Employment ; 

2.  Unemployment  and  its  prevention  ; 

3.  The    best    methods    of    promoting  co-operation 

between  Capital  and  Labour. 

A  subsequent  meeting  was  held  on  4tli  March 
1919,  and  again  the  Prime  Minister  "  hot- 
gospelled"  to  the  Joint  Committee;  and  Sub- 
Committees  were  appointed  with  the  following 
terms  of  reference  : — 

1 .  To  make  recommendations  concerning  : — 

(a)  The  methods  of  negotiation  between 
employers  and  Trade  Unions,  including 
the  establishment  of  a  permanent  Indus- 
trial Council  to  advise  the  Government  on 
industrial  and  economic  questions,  with  a 
view  to  maintaining  industrial  peace  ; 

(6)  The  method  of  dealing  with  war  advances  ; 
and 

(c)  The  method  of  regulating  wages  for  all 
classes  of  workers,  male  and  female,  by 
legal  enactment  or  otherwise. 

2.  To    make    recommendations    as    to    the  desir- 

ability of  legislation  for  a  maximum  number 
of  working  hours  and  a  minimum  rate  of 
wages  per  week. 

3.  To  consider  the  question  of  unemployment,  and 

to  make  recommendations  for  the  steps  to  be 
taken  for  its  prevention,  and  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  unemployed  in  those  cases  in 
which  it  is  not  prevented,  both  during  the  present 
emergency  period  and  on  a  permanent  basis. 
Note. — Unrest  and  output  to  be  discussed  by  the 
whole  Committee  at  its  next  meeting  on  state- 
ments previously  submitted  by  the  parties. 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  117 

The  Labour  Representatives,  having  joined 
with  those  of  the  employers  in  signing  a  general 
report,  took  the  liberty  of  meeting  separately  in 
order  te-  make  a  well-considered  and  thought- 
out  report  of  their  own  in  relation  to  the  unrest 
existing  at  the  time ;  and  it  is  well  worth  while 
to  note  some  of  the  contents  of  the  Memorandum 
submitted  by  those  representing  the  workers,  so 
far  back  as  4th  April  1919.  The  report  refers 
to  the  speech  made  by  the  Prime  Minister  in 
reply  to  a  Labour  Party  Deputation,  in  which  he 
said  : 

I  am  not  afraid  of  the  audacity  of  these  proposals. 
I  believe  the  settlement  after  the  war  will  succeed 
in  proportion  to  its  audacity.  .  .  .  Therefore, 
what  I  should  be  looking  forward  to,  I  am  certain, 
if  I  could  have  presumed  to  have  been  the  adviser 
of  the  working-classes,  would  be  this  :  1  should  say 
to  them  audacity  is  the  thing  for  you.  Think  out 
new  ways ;  think  out  new  methods ;  think  out 
even  new  ways  of  dealing  with  old  problems.  Don't 
always  be  thinking  of  getting  back  to  where  you  were 
before  the  war  ;  get  a  really  new  world. 

Having  thus  reminded  Mr  Lloyd  George  of  his 
own  "  audacious  "  statements,  the  signatories  to 
the  Labour  Memorandum  pointed  out  that : 

Throughout  the  war  the  workers  have  been  led  to 
expect  that  the  conclusion  of  hostilities  would  be 
followed  by  a  profound  revolution  in  the  economic 
structure  of  society.  Not  onlj^  social  theorists, 
but  also  the  most  prominent;^ spokesmen  of  the 
Government,  and  not  a  few  employers,  have  con- 


118    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

stantly  told  the  workers  that  we  should  never 
revert  to  the  old  conditions  of  industry  and  that  an 
altogether  higher  standard  of  life  and  an  altogether 
superior  status  for  the  worker  in  industry  would  be 
secured  as  soon  as  the  immediate  burden  of  hosti- 
lities was  removed.  ...  At  the  present  moment 
the  workers  find  themselves  face  to  face  with  dis- 
appointment. There  is  also  no  sign  that  any 
comprehensive  policy  has  been  prepared,  or  even 
contemplated,  by  the  Government  or  by  the  em- 
ployers, with  a  view  to  bringing  about  any  drastic 
change  in  industry.  Everywhere  the  workers  find 
either  the  determination  to  revert  as  soon  as  possible 
to  pre-war  conditions  in  the  operation  of  commerce 
and  manufacture,  or,  where  the  question  of  reverting 
to  pre-war  conditions  does  not  arise  or  concerns 
primarily  Labour,  they  find  that  few,  if  any,  pre- 
parations have  been  made  for  the  introductions 
of  real  changes.  The  lack  of  any  comprehensive 
industrial  or  economic  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  or  the  employers  must  therefore  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  principal  factors  in  the 
present  Labour  unrest. 

Following  the  terse  and  incisive  sentences 
read  by  Mr  J.  H.  Thomas,  who  acted  as  spokes- 
man for  the  Triple  Industrial  Alliance  at  the 
earlier  meeting  of  the  National  Joint  Council — 
from  which,  subsequently,  the  Alliance  withdrew 
— the  Labour  Memorandum  goes  on  to  demand 
equality  of  control  of  industry  by  the  work- 
people ;  it  comments  upon  the  high  prices  and 
the  profiteering,  which  had  not  diminished  to 
any  degree  since  the  signing  of  the  Armistice. 
It  deals  at  very  great  length  with  the  subject- 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  119 

matter  of  unemployment,  which,  at  that  stage, 
was  comparatively  negligible  when  compared 
with  the  proportions  it  has  reached  at  the  time 
of  writing.  On  unemployment,  it  reports  as 
follows  : 

We  are  of  the  opinion  that  a  general  increase  in 
wages  by  imiDioving  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
workers  would  have  a  general  and  permanent  effect 
in  the  direction  of  limiting  continuous  unemploy- 
ment, by  bringing  consummation  up  to  something 
more  like  equilibrium  with  production. 

Among  its  conclusions  we  have  statements  in 
keeping  with  the  general  tenor  of  the  present 
book  : 

The  fundamental  causes  of  Labour  unrest  are  to  be 
found  rather  in  the  growing  determination  of  Labour 
to  challenge  the  whole  existing  structiu-e  of  capitalist 
industry  than  in  any  of  the  more  special  and  smaller 
grievances  which  come  to  the  surface  at  any  par- 
ticular time. 

These  root  causes  are  twofold — the  breakdown  of 
the  existing  capitalist  system  of  industrial  organisa- 
tion, in  the  sense  that  the  mass  of  the  working- 
class  is  now  firmly  convinced  that  production  for 
private  profit  is  not  an  equitable  basis  on  which  to 
build,  and  that  a  vast  extension  of  public  o^Miership 
and  democratic  control  of  industry  is  urgently 
necessary.  It  is  no  longer  possible  for  organised 
Labour  to  be  controlled  by  force  or  compulsion 
of  any  kind.  It  has  grown  too  strong  to  remain 
within  the  bounds  of  the  old  industrial  system,  and 
its  unsatisfied  demand  for  the  reorganisation  of 
industry  on  democratic  lines  is  not  only  the  most 


]20        THE   NEW   LABOUR   OUTLOOK 

important,  but  also  a  constantly  growing  cause  of 
unrest. 

It  is  not  enough  merely  to  tinker  with  particular 
grievances  or  to  endeavour  to  reconstruct  the  old 
system  by  slight  adjustments  to  meet  the  new 
demands  of  Labour.  It  is  essential  to  question 
the  whole  basis  on  which  our  industry  has  been 
conducted  in  the  past,  and  to  endeavour  to  find,  in 
substitution  for  the  motive  of  private  gain,  some 
other  motive  which  will  serve  better  as  the  founda- 
tion of  a  democratic  system.  This  motive  can 
be  no  other  than  the  motive  of  public  service,  which 
at  present  is  seldom  invoked  save  when  the  workers 
threaten  to  stop  the  process  of  production  by  a 
strike. 

These  admirable  sentiments  were  signed  by 
Arthur  Henderson,  Chairman,  and  G.  D.  H. 
Cole,  Secretary. 

The  foregoing  brief  historical  resume  is 
inadequate  as  a  commentary  upon  the  change 
of  front  manifest  by  the  G-overnment  unless 
reference  were  made  to  the  conditions  under 
which  the  Government  ignored  not  only  the 
Memorandum  of  the  trade  unionists,  but  the 
Joint  Report,  signed  by  Sir  Allan  Smith  repre- 
senting the  employers,  and  Mr  Arthur  Henderson 
representing  the  workers,  and  countersigned 
by  Sir  Thomas  Munro,  K.B.E.,  who  acted  as 
Chairman. 

Between  February  and  April  of  1919,  the 
three  sections  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  thanks  to 
their  own  sagacity,  and  supported  by  the 
clamorous  pressure  of  the  members  of  the  three 
organisations,  had  settled  their  immediate  diffi- 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  121 

culties,  and,  industrial   peace  appearing    to   be 

established — at   least   for   the    time    being,  the 

Government  could  afford  to  treat  both  the  Joint 

Report  and  the  Memorandum  drawn  up  by  the 

Labour  side    as  mere    waste   paper.     It   is    on 

record   that    the    Miners'    strike    notices   were 

withdrawn  in  consequence  of  Smillie  and  Hodges 

and    their   responsible    colleagues    urging    the 

acceptance  of  the  Sankey  Commission,  they  no 

doubt  feelino'  satisfied  that  no  Government  and 

®       .  .    . 

certainly   no   Prime  Minister,  who    had,   if  not 

specifically,  at  least  by  implication,  led  the 
miners  to  believe  that  he  and  his  Government 
would  accept  the  findings  of  such  Commission  in 
respect  of  the  nationalisation  of  the  mines,  would 
fail  to  carry  out  the  promises  made,  but  again, 
with  unending  repetition,  the  trust  of  the  work- 
men and  their  leaders  was  betrayed  by  this,  the 
most  discreditable  Government  of  modern  times. 
Space  does  not  permit  anything  like  an  ample 
opportunity  to  chronicle  all  that  has  occurred 
since  that  period,  except  that  it  should  be  said 
that  no  section  of  Labour  which  has  wrung,  froni" 
the  employers,  or  the  Government,  any  appreci- 
able benefit  would,  or  could,  have  achieved  the 
slightest  modicum  of  success  without  the  most 
resolute  determination  to  press  their  demands 
by  the  actual  or  threatened  withdrawal  of  their 
labour  power.  As  dismay  follows  rapidly  upon  dis- 
illusionment, the  workers  show  increased  and  ever- 
increasing  revolutionary  tendencies.  Cheated  by 
adequate  representation  in  Parliament,  they  are 


122    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

constrained  to  think  more  and  more  in  terms  of 
mass  industrial  action. 

The  Triple  Industrial  Alliance,  ever  in  the  fore- 
front of  the  revolutionary  working-class  move- 
ment, watched  the  attempts  of  the  international 
capitalists  and  financiers  to  crush  the  Soviet 
power  in  Russia,  and  direct  action  afforded  to 
them  the  only  possible  solution  of  the  problem 
of  compelling  the  Allied  and  Entente  Powers 
to  refrain  from  interference  in  Russian  affairs. 
The  movement  in  favour  of  direct  action  for 
definitely  and  avowedly  political  purposes  has 
sprung  chiefly  from  an  implacable  hatred  of 
British  interference  in  the  affairs  of  Socialist 
Russia,  and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring  that 
every  attempt  to  destroy  the  Soviet  power  in 
Russia  has  contributed  in  an  immeasurable  degree 
to  the  destruction  of  bourgeois  institutions,  not 
only  in  Britain,  but  throughout  Western  Europe. 
Following  upon  a  campaign  initiated  by  the 
Triple  Alliance  in  favour  of  a  complete  with- 
drawal of  labour  on  the  part  of  Miners,  Railway- 
men  and  Transport  Workers,  in  the  event  of  the 
Government  refusing  to  alter  its  Russian  policy, 
the  Labour  Party  Conference  at  Southport  in 
June  1919,  in  that  part  of  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee's Report  read  by  Mr  Henderson,  the 
Secretary,  said : — 

The  general  view  of  the  Executive  Committee  is 
that  if  the  British  Labour  Movement  is  to  institute 
a  new  precedent  in  our  industrial  history  by  initiating 
a  general  strike  for  the  purpose  of  achieving  not 
industrial   but   political   objects,   it   is   imperative 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  123 


that  the  Trade  Unions,  whose  members  are  to  fulfil 
the  obligations  implied  in  the  new  policy  and  whose 
finances  it  is  presumed  are  to  be  involved,  should 
realise  the  responsibilities  such  a  strike  movement 
would  entail,  and  should  themselves  determine  the 
plan  of  any  such  new  campaign. 

This  was  a  tactical  move  on  the  part  of  the 
Executive  Committee  to  deny  any  responsibility 
whatsoever  for  the  programme  of  Direct  Action 
or  revolutionary  strike  action  for  a  clear  and 
unmistakable  political  object.  The  present 
writer,  being  a  member  of  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  Labour  Party,  challenged  that 
portion  of  the  Executive  Report,  so  that  its 
acceptance  by  the  Conference  would  not  pre- 
judge the  direct  action  Resolution  which  came 
up  later  on  the  Agenda.  He  said,  among  other 
things,  he  was  trying  to  voice  the  sentiments 
which  were  increasing  in  strength  among  intel- 
ligent men  throughout  the  entire  Labour  Move- 
ment, and  in  which  they  wanted  to  know  whether 
the  working-class  was  ready  to  alter  its  tactics, 
and  he  thought  something  should  be  done  at 
Southport  to  give  trade  unionists  some  oppor- 
tunity of  discussing,  and,  perchance,  deciding, 
whether  they  were  prepared  to  adopt  strike 
action  in  order  to  achieve  their  political  objects. 
They  had  discussed  in  another  place  and  within 
another  organisation  that  matter  as  recently  as 
the  previous  night,  and  had  decided  to  arrange 
a  properly-convened  Conference  of  the  Delegates 
of  the  three  organisations  of  the  Triple  Alliance, 
who  were  then  represented. 


124        THE   NEW   LABOUR   OUTLOOK 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  power  in  the  hands 
of  that  threefold  organisation,  but  he  was  con- 
vinced that  there  were  men  in  other  trades  and 
other  industries — organised  in  other  Unions — 
who  were  as  anxious  upon  the  matter  of  war 
against  Soviet  Russia  as  were  the  transport 
workers,  the  miners  and  the  railwaymen.  They, 
had  been  told  over  and  over  again  that  certain 
forms  of  action  were  unconstitutional  in  character, 
but  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  Labour  Party,  the  Trades'  Union 
Congress  and  the  entire  Labour  Movement  was 
on  every  occasion  what  circumstances  might  make 
it.  Therefore,  his  fixed  conviction  was  that 
inexorable  circumstances  had  compelled  them  to 
revolutionise  their  tactics  with  regard  to  these 
things.  It  was  said  that  their  action  was  likely 
to  be  unconstitutional  in  character,  but  was  the 
war  against  Russia  a  constitutional  war  ?  Had 
war  been  formally  declared,  had  the  credits  been 
voted  ?  One  day,  when  it  appeared  that  the 
reactionar)''  Koltchak  was  making  a  success,  the 
scion  of  the  House  of  Marlborough — that  would- 
be  military  dictator,  Mr  Winston  Churchill — 
applauded  and  exulted  over  the  success  of  the 
reactionaries  who  were  trying  to  crush  the 
Workers'  Republic.  When  the  tide  turned  and 
Koltchak  was  in  full  retreat  before  the  Red 
Army  of  Soviet  Russia,  Mr  Churchill  stammered 
and  equivocated,  and  said  : 

We  are  not  engaged  in  war,  we  are  not  sending 
many    men,    we    are    only    supplying    them    with 


THE    NEWER   OUTLOOK  125 

quantities  of  munitions  and  materials  of  war  which 
we  cannot  use. 

In  that  way  he  dissembled  his  lies.  It  was  im- 
perative therefore,  he,  the  speaker,  urged,  that  an 
opportunity  be  given  to  those  who  represented 
Trade  Unions  there,  to  express  their  opinion  as  to 
whether  direct  action  for  these  political  objects 
was  warranted  or  desirable.  His  desire  was  that 
an  ample  opportunity  should  be  given  to  the 
workers  of  this  country  to  say  whether  they  were 
in  favour  of  military  intervention  directed  to 
crush  the  Workers'  Republic  in  Russia.  If  some- 
thing on  these  lines  could  be  done,  if  action  came 
properly,  formally  and  constitutionally  from  the 
responsible  leaders  of  Labour  in  this  country, 
he  was  convinced  that  the  workers  would  take 
action,  as  they  had  every  indication  they  would 
do,  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
country. 

Mr  Robert  Smillie,  thereupon,  in  a  motion  to 
move  the  reference  of  the  paragraph  back,  said  : 

Mr  Williams  has  spoken  of  Mr  Churchill  giving  a 
direct  challenge  to  the  Labour  Movement  at  the 
present  time.  He  took  it  that  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  Labour  Party  had  given  a  direct 
challenge  in  this  paragraph  to  the  Labour  Movement 
of  the  country.  The  fact  that  Mr  Henderson  was 
called  upon  by  the  Chairman  to  read  the  paragraph, 
in  order  to  emphasise  it,  struck  him  as  being  a 
direct  challenge  on  the  question  of  whether,  what 
is  called  Trade  Union  action  ought,  or  ought  not, 
to  assist  their  members  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
what  were  called  political  questions.  It  was  rather 
strange    that    the    Executive    Committee    of    the 


126    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

Labour  Party  should  have  taken  up  exactly  the 
position  of  every  exploiter  and  capitalist  and  poli- 
tician in  this  country  at  the  present  time.  They 
feared  more  than  anything  else  what  had  come  to  be 
called  direct  action.  But  he  wanted  to  put  it  that 
direct  action  might  be  constitutional  action.  .  .  . 

But  they  were  told  their  action  was  unconstitu- 
tional. He  would  like  to  follow  Mr  Williams'  state- 
ment as  to  whether  the  action  of  the  Government  of 
this  country  was  constitutional.  Had  they  not 
deceived  the  people  ?  Were  they  not  returned  to 
power  under  false  pretences  ?  Did  not  every 
member  of  their  Committee  believe  that  the  present 
Government  was  sitting  in  its  place  through  fraud  ? 
If  they  believed  that  the  Government  deceived  and 
lied  to  the  people  in  order  to  get  returned,  if  that 
was  true,  was  the  great  Labour  Movement  not  to 
take  any  action  to  get  rid  of  a  Government  that  was 
sitting  there  through  fraud  and  deceit  ? 

At  a  later  stage  of  the  Conference  proceedings, 
the  following  Resolution  was  moved  andseconded, 
and  carried  by  1,193,000  votes  to  935,000  : 

This  Conference  protests  against  the  continued- 
intervention  by  the  Allies  in  Russia,  whether  by 
force  of  arms,  by  supply  of  munitions,  by  financial 
subsidies,  or  by  commercial  blockade  ;  it  calls  for 
the  immediate  cessation  of  such  intervention  ;  it 
demands  the  removal  of  the  censorship,  so  that  an 
unbiased  public  opinion  may  be  formed  upon  the 
issues  involved  ;  it  denounces  the  assistance  given 
by  the  Allies  to  reactionary  bodies  in  Russia  as 
being  a  continuation  of  the  war  in  the  interests  of 
financial  capitalism,  which  aims  at  the  destruction 
of  the  Russian  Socialist  Republic,  and  as  being  a 
denial  of  the  rights  of  peoples  to  self-determination  ; 
and  it  instructs  the  National  Executive  to  consult 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  127 

the  Parliamentary  Committee  of  the  Trade  Union 
Congress,  with  the  view  to  effective  action  being 
taken  to  enforce  these  demands  by  the  unreserved 
use  of  their  political  and  industrial  power. 

From  this  moment  onward  the  Direct  Action 
Movement  developed  in  intensity  as  it  increased 
in  volume.  At  the  Trades'  Union  Congress  in 
Glasgow  in  the  same  j^ear — 1919 — the  Parliamen- 
tary Committee  received  unmitigated  censure 
for  refusing  to  convene  a  special  congress  follow- 
ing upon  the  request  made  in  person  by  a  Delega- 
tion from  the  Triple  Alliance.  The  Conference, 
moreover,  fully  endorsed  the  principle  of  direct 
action  for  political  purposes  by  a  majority  more 
striking  in  character  than  that  of  the  Southport 
Labour  Party  Conference.  There  can  be  no 
gainsaying  the  fact  that  Labour  in  its  industrial 
sphere  is  far  more  ready  to  take  revolutionary 
action  than  would  appear  from  the  number  of 
votes  cast  at  election  times,  although  it  must  be 
stated  that  increased  militancy  on  the  industrial 
field,  by  reason  of  the  constant  challenging  of 
the  status  of  the  employing  class,  does  create  a 
class  solidarity  which  in  turn  finds  expression  in 
the  ballot-box. 

It  will  be  now  readily  admitted  by  friend  and 
foe  alike  that  the  formation  of  the  Council  of 
Action  in  1920  was  the  result  of  the  painstaking 
and  ceaseless  propaganda  in  favour  of  revolu- 
tionary direct  action  throughout  1919  on  the 
part  of  the  Triple  Alliance.  Hatred  of  war  and 
a  fear  of  the  Government's  reactionary  policy 
inspired  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Trade  Union 


128        THE   NEW   LABOUR   OUTLOOK 

Movement  to  demand  general  strike  action  against 
the  declared  and  threatened  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  send  military  aid  to  Poland  in  July  and 
August  1920.  In  those  early  days  of  August 
1920  a  similar  atmosphere  was  being  created 
to  that  which  obtained  in  August  1914  ;  and 
on  Saturday,  7th  August  1920,  the  following 
Memorandum,  signed  by  the  undermentioned 
leaders  of  the  Labour  Movement,  was  published 
throughout  the  Press  of  the  country  : 

We,  the  undersigned,  being  occupied  chiefly  in 
the  organisation  of  Labour,  both  industrially  and 
politically,  feel  it  our  duty  to  warn  the  British  public 
of  the  possibility  of  drifting  into  another  war. 

The  war  party  in  this  country  are  using  their  most 
supreme  efforts  to  put  themselves  into  the  saddle 
and  to  involve  us  in  a  war  against  Russia  and  those 
who  may  become  her  Allies,  which  will  drive  us  over 
the  precipice  of  bankruptcy,  on  the  edge  of  which  we 
now  stand .  Britain  has  a  National  Debt  of  something 
like  eight  thousand  millions,  and  the  failure  to  estab- 
lish trade  relationships  again  between  ourselves  and 
other  countries  makes  for  complete  economic  break- 
down and  national  and  international  disaster.  We 
have  spent  already  more  than  one  hundred  million 
pounds  in  a  futile  effort  to  challenge  and  destroy 
Russia's  right  to  her  own  form  of  Government. 

Soviet  Russia  has  been  not  only  willing  but  anxious 
to  make  peace  on  mutually  satisfactory  terms  with 
her  neighbour  the  Polish  State,  but  we  are  convinced 
that  all  the  friendly  overtures  made  by  Russia 
towards  a  Peace  Treaty  and  a  peace  settlement  were 
deemed — both  by  Poland  and  the  French  Government 
in  particular — to  be  a  sign  of  weakness  on  Russia's 
part,  to  be  exploited  in  the  most  relentless  manner. 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  129 

Russia  faced  all  the  horrors  of  a  Polish  invasion 
of  admittedly  Russian  territory,  and  braced  herself 
•  once  more  for  a  supreme  effort  to  resist  the  domineer- 
ing intentions  of  the  new  Poland.  The  Soviet 
authorities  are  increasingly  anxious  to  make  peace 
with  the  countries  who  are  openly  or  covertly  at 
war  \Adth  her  in  order  to  restore  her  internal  situation, 
but  every  effort  on  her  part  is  thwarted  first  by  one 
and  then  another. 

The  Russian  Soviet  Government  has  given  clear 
proof  on  every  occasion  that  it  will  agree  to  Polish 
independence  on  even  more  favourable  terms  than 
those  suggested  by  the  Allies  at  Versailles,  and  to 
give  Poland  frontiers  better  than  the  suggested 
"  ethnographical  line." 

The  mischievous  article  by  the  present  Secretary 
for  War  only  serves  to  widen  the  breach  between 
people  of  moderate  opinion  in  this  country  and  in 
Russia,  and  we  have  to  call  attention  to  the  decision 
of  a  recent  Special  Trades'  Union  Congress,  repre- 
senting some  six  millions  of  organised  workers,  on 
the  peace  relationships  between  Poland  and  Russia. 
The  following  Resolution,  moved  by  Mr  Tom  Shaw 
and  seconded  by  Miss  Margaret  Bondfield,  was 
carried  unanimously  and  ^vith  acclamation  : — 

That  this  Trades'  Union  Congress  learns  with 
amazement  the  new  demands  submitted  to  the 
Russian  Government  before  peace  negotiations, 
on  the  terms  of  the  Krassin  document,  are 
proceeded  with. 

The  Conference  is  heartily  in  favour  of  any  and 
all  action  which  may  lead  to  peace  in  Eastern 
Europe,  but  warns  the  British  Government  and 
the  Spa  Conference  that  anj^  attempts  of  a 
clandestine  nature  to  secure  the  support  of  the 
British  democracy  in  order  to  give  military 
assistance  to  Poland,  is  foredoomed  to  failure. 

I 


130    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

The  Conference  therefore  calls  upon  the  Govern- 
ment to  adhere  to  the  terms  submitted  to  and 
accepted  by  the  Moscow  Government  as  a  basis 
of  a  lasting  peace  between  Britain  and  Russia. 
In  our  judgment,  there  is  no  possibility  of  any 
whole-hearted  co-operation  between  the  organised 
work-people  and  the  Government  if,  and  when,  any 
effort  is  made  to  involve  us  in  another  calamitous  war. 
We  think  the  workers  will  be  thoroughly  justified 
in  refusing  to  render  labour  services  in  a  war  waged 
in  support  of  a  nation  which  has  attempted  conquest, 
spoliation  and  self -aggrandisement. 

Every  visible  indication  points  to  the  workers 
desiring  only  that  Russia  should  conduct  her  own 
Government  in  her  own  way,  leaving  Poland,  and  in 
fact  all  other  countries,  to  act  similarly  ;  that  is, 
govern  themselves  in  their  own  way. 

At  the  present  time  we  can  ill  afford  to  spare  even 
a  few  thousand  men  or  a  few  million  pounds  from  our 
depleted  national  resources  to  suit  the  whims  and 
caprices  of  the  French  military  faction  who  are  at  the 
back  of  this  Polish  enterprise.  Houses  are  lament- 
ably short,  and  the  prime  necessaries  of  life  are 
becoming  increasingly  difficult  to  obtain  because  of 
two  further  years  of  warfare  following  upon  the 
Armistice  of  November  1918.  The  people  in  every 
country  want  only  to  devote  themselves  more  and 
more  to  rational  and  peaceful  reconstruction  in 
order  that  the  world  with  its  teeming  miUions  may 
be  made  a  brighter  and  more  habitable  place  for  the 
workers  and  those  dependent  upon  them. 

We  have  therefore  to  warn  the  responsible 
Governments,  the  diplomats,  and  the  various  foreign 
ministers,  that  Labour  in  this  country  will  not  co- 
operate in  a  war  as  the  allies  of  Poland,  after  the 
conduct  of  that  country,  against  which  our  own 
Prime  Minister  has  warned  the  Polish  Government 
again  and  again. 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  131 


By  demonstration  of  their  will  to  peace,  their  will 
to  settle  equitably  these  interminable  quarrels,  the 
British  public  in  general,  and  the  working-class  in 
particular,  can  make  it  clear  to  all  whom  it  may 
concern  that  now  more  than  ever  we  want  peace — a 
real  peace,  a  lasting  peace,  rather  than  endless  wars 
and  threats  of  wars. 
(Signed)  Ernest  Bevin.  Margaret  Bondfield. 

C.    W.    BOWERMAN.         J.    R.    ClYNES. 

C.  T.  Cramp.  Arthur  Henderson. 

George  Lansbury.  William  Lunn. 

Tom  Mann.  James  0  Grady. 

A.  A.  Purcell.  John  Robertson. 

Ben  Spoor.  Stephen  Walsh. 

James  Wignall.  Robert  Williams. 

So  critical  was  the  position  that  thousands  of 
Resolutions  literally  swamped  the  Offices  of  the 
Labour  Party,  Trades'  Union  Congress,  and 
found  their  way  into  the  capitalist  as  well  as 
the  Labour  Press.  Official  Labour  of  all  shades 
of  opinion  could  not  but  respond  to  the  imperious 
demands  expressed  in  every  part  of  the  country. 
"  Not  a  man,  not  a  gun,  not  a  sou,"  was  Labour's 
watchword  at  this  time,  and  on  9  th  August  a 
General  Conference,  representing  the  Parliamen- 
tary Committee  of  the  Trades'  Union  Congress, 
the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Labour  Party 
and  the  members  of  the  Parliamentary  Labour 
Party  was  held  in — of  all  places — the  Grand 
Committee  Room  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Labour's  policy  was  made  unmistakably  clear  in 
the  Resolution  passed  without  one  dissentient 
voice  or  vote ;  and  revolutionary  fervour  and 
proletarian  instincts  are  expressed  with  indubit- 


132    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

able  clarity  therein.  The  Resolution  was  as 
follows  : — 

That  this  Joint  Conference,  representing  the 
Trades'  Union  Congress,  the  Labour  Party  and  the 
Parliamentary  Labour  Party,  feels  certain  that  war 
is  being  engineered  between  the  Allied  Powers  and 
Soviet  Russia  on  the  issue  of  Poland,  and  declares 
that  such  a  war  would  be  an  intolerable  crime 
against  humanity ;  it  therefore  warns  the  Government 
that  the  whole  industrial  power  of  the  organised  loorkers 
ivill  be  used  to  defeat  this  war. 

That  the  Executive  Committees  of  afl&liated 
organisations  throughout  the  country  be  summoned 
to  hold  themselves  ready  to  proceed  immediately 
to  London  for  a  National  Conference.  ' 

That  they  be  advised  to  instruct  their  members  to 
"  down  tools  "  on  instructions  from  that  National 
Conference. 

And  that  a  Council  of  Action  be  immediately 
constituted  to  take  such  steps  as  may  be  necessary 
to  carry  the  above  decisions  into  effect. 

Arising  out  of  the  foregoing  Resolution,  the 
Council  of  Action  was  formed,  atid  on  Friday, 
13th  August  1920,  a  Special  Labour  Conference 
was  held  at  the  Central  Hall,  Westminster,  when 
Delegates  to  the  number  of  1044,  consisting  of 
689  Representatives  of  Trade  Unions  and  355 
representatives  of  Local  Labour  Parties  and 
Trades'  Councils,  were  present.  The  utmost 
enthusiasm  and  unanimity  was  manifest  through- 
out the  whole  of  the  proceedings,  and  after  the 
Delegates  had  signified  their  approval  of  the 
formation  of  the  Council  of  Action,  the  following, 
which  was  the  chief  Resolution,  was  put  to  the 
Conference  and  carried  with  acclamation  : — 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  1S3 

That  this  Conference  of  Trade  Union  and  Labour 
Representatives  hails  Avith  satisfaction  the  Russian 
Government's  declaration  in  favour  of  the  complete 
independence  of  Poland  as  set  forth  in  their  Peace 
Terms  to  Poland,  and  realising  the  gravity  of  the 
international  situation,  pledges  itself  to  resist  any 
and  ever}^  form  of  military  and  naval  intervention 
against  the  Soviet  Government  of  Russia. 

It  accordingly  instructs  the  Council  of  Action  to 
remain  in  being  until  they  have  secured  : — 

L  An  absolute  guarantee  that  the  armed  forces 
of  Great  Britain  shall  not  be  used  in  support 
of  Poland,  Baron  Wrangel,  or  anj^  other 
military  or  naval  effort  against  the  Soviet 
Government . 

2.  The   withdrawal    of   all    British   naval   forces 

operating  directh'  or  indirectly  as  a  blockad- 
ing influence  against  Russia. 

3.  The  recognition  of  the  Russian  Soviet  Govern- 

ment and  the  establishment  of  unrestricted 
trading  and  commercial  relationships  between 
Great  Britain  and  Russia. 

This  Conference  further  refuses  to  be  associated 
with  any  Alliance  between  Great  Britain  and  France 
or  any  other  country  which  commits  us  to  any 
support  of  Wrangel,  Poland,  or  the  supply  of 
munitions  or  other  war  material  for  any  form  of 
attack  upon  Soviet  Russia. 

This  Conference  authorises  the  Council  of  Action 
to  call  for  any  and  every  withdrawal  of  Labour 
which  circumstances  may  require  to  give  effect  to 
the  foregoing  policy,  and  calls  upon  ever}'  Trade 
Union  official,  Executive  Committee,  Local  Council 
of  Action,  and  the  membership  in  general,  to  act 
swiftly,  loyally,  and  courageously  in  order  to  sweep 
away  secret  bargaining  and  diplomacy,  and  to  assure 
that  the  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain  may  be  in 


134    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

accord  with  the  well-known  desires  of  the  people  for 
an  end  to  war  and  the  interminable  threats  of  war. 

Direct  action  has,  therefore,  left  the  propa- 
ganda stage  and  has  become  part  of  the  explicit 
plan  and  avowed  programme  of  the  British 
Labour  Movement.  Those  of  us  who  have  not 
been  content  with  the  declarations  expressed  in 
pious  resolutions,  but  who  have  desired  to  impreg- 
nate the  Labour  Movement  with  a  spirit  of 
iron  resolution,  were  satisfied,  while  being  amazed, 
to  hear  the  "  moderate  "  men  who  had  hitherto 
denounced  direct  action,  readily  declare  their 
devotion  to  this  Resolution.  Mr  J.  R.  Clynes, 
Mr  J.  H.  Thomas,  Mr  Tom  Shaw  and  a  host  of 
others  placed  their  hands  on  their  hearts  and 
testified  to  their  conversion  to  the  principle, 
and  they  hastened  in  every  way  to  oppose  the 
impending  war  on  the  side  of  Poland  against 
Soviet  Russia,  realising  full  well  that  every 
efi'ort  to  crush  Sovietism  in  Russia  was  acceler- 
ating the  advent  of  Sovietism  in  Great  Britain. 

To  those  of  my  readers  who  are  opposed  to 
direct  action,  I  make  a  present  of  the  fact  that 
the  principle  was  turned  down  at  the  Special 
Conference  to  consider  joint  strike  action  in 
favour  of  the  nationalisation  of  mines.  This 
can  be  readily  understood,  for  there  never  was 
any  deep-rooted  desire  to  risk  revolutionary 
strike  action  in  favour  of  nationalisation  or 
socialisation  in  respect  of  one  single  industry, 
important  though  the  principle  may  be  in  con- 
nection with  mining  affairs. 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  135 

Notwithstanding  the  allegations  of  sordidness 
frequently  made  against  the  workers  of  this  and 
other  countries,  they  are  never  more  prepared  to 
make  great  sacrifices  and  to  fight  resolutely  than 
for  some  great  far-reaching  question  of  principle. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  biggest  fights  in  the 
industrial  history  of  this  country  have  been  more 
for  principle  than  for  material  gain. 

The  Transport  Strike  in   1911  was  fought  for 
the  principle  of  the  abolition  of  the  infamous 
"ticket"    of    the    Shipping   Federation,    which 
imposed   a  slave  status  upon   the  men    in  the 
mercantile  marine.     The  Eailway  Strike  of  the 
same  year  was  fought  for  —  and   did   actually 
achieve  —  a   recognition    of    the   Railwaymen's 
Union.     In  1912  the  great  Miners'  Strike  was 
conducted  for  the  purpose   of  establishing  the 
minimum  wage,  but  it  largely  arose  out  of  the 
inability  of  one  section — that  in  South  Wales — 
to  deal  with  the  problem   of  abnormal  places. 
Noteworthy  strikes  in  the  railway  world  were 
fought  for  the  reinstatement  of  two    unjustly 
treated    members  of  the   Railwaymen's   Union. 
The  first,  which  took  place  on  the  North-Eastern 
Railway,  was  due  to  the  unwarrantable  dismissal 
of  Driver  Knox,  who  had  been  involved  in  some 
Police    Court    proceedings   which   were    subse- 
quently revokecl,  thus  holding  the  legal  process 
up  to  the  derision  of  the  work-people.     In  the 
other  case,  which  concerned  Guard  Richardson 
of  Shefiield,  an  employee  of  the  Midland  Railway 
Company,  the  workers  struck  in  sympathy  with 


136    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

a  colleague  who  had  been  unwarrantably  dis- 
missed, owing  to  some  alleged  dereliction  of  duty. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  workers  are 
never  more  prepared  to  throw  the  whole  of  their 
position  into  the  melting  -  pot  than  on  some 
question  of  justice  or  for  some  great  principle. 

Restrictions  on  space  prevent  one  from  offer- 
ing more  than  a  brief  summary  of  recent  events, 
in  order  more  than  sufficiently  to  prove  the 
justification  for,  and  the  utility  and  effectiveness 
of,  direct  action  on  the  part  of  the  workers. 

The  present  chapter  would  be  incomplete 
were  some  reference  not  made  to  the  Railway 
Strike  which  took  place  in  September- October 
1919.  Here  again  the  Railwaymen  were  at 
variance  with  the  Government  on  two  questions 
of  principle,  namely,  those  of  stabilisation  of  war 
wages  and  of  the  standardisation  of  the  condi- 
tions amongst  similar  grades  on  different  lines. 
Although  the  Railwaymen  might  have  avoided 
the  Strike,  had  they  relied  upon  the  accession 
of  strength  which  their  association  with  Mine 
Workers  and  Trans20ort  Workers  gave  to  them, 
they  inadvertently,  and,  I  contend,  unadvisedly, 
went  into  the  Strike  without  consultation  with 
their  partners  in  the  Triple  Alliance.  Political 
ineptitude  and  double-dealing  on  the  part  of  the 
brothers  Geddes  was  the  most  provocative  factor 
to  the  employees'  side,  and  as  a  last  resort,  and 
without  the  support  of  the  Miners  and  Transport 
Workers,  which  had  been  of  such  assistance  in 
the  previous  year,  the  Strike,  with  its  consequent 


THE   NEWER  OUTLOOK  137 

dislocation  of  transport  and  industry,  was  form- 
ally declared. 

The  Eailwaymen,  who  throughout  the  war 
had  been  most  peaceful  and  law-abiding,  had 
now,  in  the  words  of  the  Prime  Minister,  become 
a  body  of  men  who  either  were  themselves,  or 
w^ere  influenced  by,  a  number  of  "anarchist 
conspirators." 

Members  of  the  Transport  Workers'  Federa- 
tion were  immediately  involved,  by  reason   of 
the  collateral  transport  services — coastal,  canal 
and  road  and   highway — which    they   operated 
being  thrown  in  a  state  of  dislocation.     Despite 
the  fact  that  as  partners  in  the  Triple  Alliance 
they  should  have  been  consulted,  class  solidarity 
would  not  allow  them  to  offer  fine-spun  criticism 
at  such  a  crucial  moment,  and  they,  therefore, 
took  it  upon  themselves  to  organise  a  Conference 
of  Unions    already   involved   and   likely  to  be 
involved,  with  a  view  to  going  to  the  assistance 
of  their  friends  and  colleao;ues  of  the  National 
Union   of  Railwaymen.      On   1st  October   the 
Conference  of  the  above-mentioned  Unions  was 
held,  and  immediate  representation  was  made  to 
the  Government  to  the  effect  that  the  Negotiat- 
ing Committee,  acting  on  behalf  of  the  Confer- 
ence, were  anxious  to  interview  the  members  of 
the  Cabinet  with  a  view,  either  to  the  promotion 
of  a  settlement  likely  to  meet  with  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  N.U.E,.  or  with  a  view  to  the  extension 
of  the  dispute,  on   account   of  the  identity   of 
interests  of  the  workers  as  a  class.     A  situation 


138   THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

of  the  utmost  gravity  had  arisen,  and  the  Nego- 
tiating Committee  used  its  good  offices  in  order, 
if  possible,  to  promote  an  amicable  settlement. 
The  Prime  Minister  and  those  who  were  advising 
him  had  hitherto  assumed  an  absolutely  irre- 
sponsible attitude,  and  spent  tens  of  thousands 
of  pounds  of  the  ratepayers'  money  in  vilifying 
the  Railwaymen's  organisation,  and  in  attempt- 
ing to  seduce  other  sections  of  the  working-class 
from  their  allegiance  to  the  cause  of  their  com- 
rades on  the  railways.  All  possible  steps  were 
taken  by  the  authorities,  in  their  own  hypocritical 
parlance,  to  utilise  the  resources  of  the  State, 
which  meant,  of  course,  all  the  means  at  the 
disposal  of  those  who  represent  the  propertied 
interests,  in  order  to  defeat  the  Strike. 

Volunteers  were  enrolled  to  supply  a  skeleton 
service,  especially  on  the  Underground  Railways 
of  the  Metropolis,  and  to  a  lesser  extent  on  the 
great  railways  of  the  country. 

The  Negotiating  Committee  representing  the 
informal  Conference  had  fully  convinced  them- 
selves that  the  Strike  was  just  an  ordinary  one 
for  themaintenance  of  the  economic  status  secured 
by  years  of  organised  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
Railwaymen,  and  they  repeatedly  warned  the 
Government  that  unless  they  adopted  a  more 
reasonable  attitude  it  w^ould  be  impossible  to 
avert  a  widespread  extension  to  other  industries, 
thus  creating  the  gravest  industrial  crisis  with 
which  this  or  any  other  country  had  been  con- 
fronted.    Faced  with  a  new  situation  and  being 


THE    NEWER   OUTLOOK  139 

fully  aware  of  the  revolutionary  possibilities  likely 
to  be  involved  in  tbe  event  of  an  extension  of 
the  dispute,  the  Government  adopted  a  far  more 
tractable  attitude,  and  in  consequence  of  the 
changed  view-point,  which  itself  was  the  outcome 
of  the  declaration  of  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
Negotiating  Committee,  speaking  in  the  name 
of  some  four  millions  of  organised  workers,  the 
Government  efiected  the  settlement  upon  which 
a  resumption  of  work  took  place. 

All  my  experience  in  these  matters  has  con- 
veyed to  me  the  conviction  that  when  the  workers 
are  negotiating  with  the  employers,  or  with  the 
Government,  which  invariably  represents  the 
employers,  they  exercise  an  incalculably  greater 
influence  when  they  speak  in  terms  of  industrial 
strength  and  power,  than  when  they  speak  politi- 
cally on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons  or 
elsewhere.  The  most  able  of  our  Parliamentary 
exponents,  if  and  when  he  relies  upon  mere 
political  influence,  is  treated  with  derision  by  the 
Government  and  its  spokesmen.  Those  of  us, 
however,  who  are  enabled  to  speak  with  the  in- 
dustrial mass  movement  implicitly  and  inexorably 
behind  us,  can  make  the  Government  change  its 
plans  as  readily  as  we  are  told  the  chameleon 
changes  its  skin.  This  present  Government,  like 
most  Governments,  respects  only  force.  They 
will  deny  it,  as  is  their  wont ;  they  will  profess 
they  will  not  yield  to  it,  as  has  ofttimes  been 
the  case  ;  but  in  every  instance,  according  to  my 
own  knowledge  and  as  the  outcome  of  my  own 


140    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

experience,  the  Government  will  eat  their  own 
words  and  will  go  down  on  their  knees,  as  they 
have  done  so  frequently,  and  make  every  possible 
concession,  if  only  the  forces  of  organised  Labour 
will  make  the  necessary  economic  and  industrial 
demonstration. 

We  see,  therefore,  the  revolutionary  leavening 
as  it  works  upon  the  hitherto  inert  mass,  influ- 
enced by  underlying  economic  and  industrial 
conditions.  The  mind  of  the  workers  is  being 
thus  prepared  by  revolutionary  tendencies  for 
revolutionary  purposes  and  possibilities,  for  the 
evidence  of  the  industrial  and  economic  fact  is 
infinitely  more  eff'ective  than  the  propaganda  of 
the  spoken  or  written  word. 

Who  is  there,  except  the  paid  hack  of  the 
Capitalist  Press,  who  can  deny  the  inalienable 
right  of  the  workers  to  use  every  means  at  their 
disposal  for  the  purpose  of  securing  their 
economic  and  industrial  freedom  ?  Did  the 
Barons  who  wrung  the  Magna  Charta  from  King 
John  split  dialectical  hairs  in  the  process  of 
applying  direct  action  ?  A  re  the  workers,  who 
can  exercise  far  more  relative  strength  than 
could  the  Barons  against  King  John,  going  to  be 
deterred  by  appeals  to  constitutional  procedure  ? 

Well  might  the  members  of  the  British 
Delegation  to  Russia  rub  their  eyes  when  they 
saw  flaunted  before  them  over  the  Opera  House 
in  Moscow  the  declaration  of  the  Soviet  authori- 
ties :  "Direct  Action  is  the  Short  Cut  to  the 
Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat."     It  is  not  in 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  141 

Kussia   alone  that  the  truth  of  that  slogfan   is 
vindicated,  for  in  the  British  War  Office  all  the 
implications    of   massed    industrial    action    are 
realised  more  than  is  the  case  in   many  Trade 
Union  Offices.     In  Russia  they  are  realists,  and 
the  world-wide  proletarian  tendencies  are  watched 
with  the  most  painstaking  diligence.     The  organ- 
ised workers  in  Denmark,   by    means    of  their 
General    Strike,    brought   the    occupant   of  the 
throne  and  his  reactionary  counsellors  to  a  sense 
of  responsibility.    During  the  time  of  the  infamous 
Kapp  Putch  in  Germany,  while  the  politicians — 
social-democrat   as   well  as   bourgeois — were  in 
full  flight  from  the  capital,  the  organisations  of 
the  workers  fought  the  Junkers  and  militarists 
and  brought    them   finally   to  their  knees.     Of 
what  avail  were  the  wordy  protests  of  the  time- 
serving politicians  against  the  display  of  armed 
force  by  the  Baltic  and  East  Prussian  militarists, 
anxious   to  restore  the    Hohenzollern  dynasty  ? 
The  political  citadel  fell  before  a  shot  was  fired. 
But  how  much  less  eff'ective  were  the  operations 
of  the  military  against  the  will  and  determina- 
tion of  Germany's  organised  millions.     Eailway, 
mining  and  metallurgical  industries  were  paralysed 
as  though  by  the  stroke  of  a    wizard's    wand. 
Even  the  grave-diggers  refrained  from  their  task 
of  burying  the  dead  I 

When  the  w^orkers  dare,  they  can  do.  Chan- 
cellors and  foreign  ministers  can  declare  for 
wars,  Parliaments  may  vote  the  credits,  but  it 
remains  for  the  mass  of  the  common  people  to 


142    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

give  or  to  withhold  their  sovereign  labour  power. 
General  Strike  is  immeasurably  more  powerful 
than  General  Ludendorff  or  General  Foch :  before 
the  General  Strike,  the  General  Election  pales 
into  insignificance  !  Compare  the  achievements 
of  parliamentary  action  with  industrial  action  in 
this  or  any  other  country.  The  Parliamentary 
Labour  Party  has  used  its  collective  strength, 
since  its  success  in  1906,  to  reduce  the  tax  on 
tea  by  twopence  in  the  pound.  One  of  its  most 
able  financial  experts,  Mr  Philip  Snowden,  has 
made  speech  after  speech  on  the  Budget  Debate, 
proving  by  the  most  remorseless  logic  the  need 
to  place  taxation  on  those  shoulders  best  able  to 
bear  it.  Yet  speeches,  debates  and  parliamentary 
"  action "  have  proved  impotent.  Industrial 
action,  on  the  other  hand,  has  made  it  possible 
for  the  organised  workers  to  obtain  the  necessary 
purchasing  power  with  which  to  buy  tea,  and 
now  and  then  to  add  sugar  and  milk.  Truly 
could  Karl  Marx  say  the  British  working-class 
were  the  pugilists  of  the  proletariat  of  Europe. 

We  have  learned  the  lesson  that  without 
industrial  power  and  influence  politics  are  worse 
than  useless.  Political  activity  can  do  no  more 
than  reflect  the  economic  strength  of  the  opponents 
waging  the  war  of  the  classes.  The  rivalries  of 
class  interests  are  more  conspicuous  than  ever 
before  in  human  history,  and  these  rivalries,  these 
diametrically  opposed  interests,  receive  their 
clearest  expression  in  mine,  factory  and  work- 
shop.    They  flow  from  underlying  economic  and 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  143 

industrial  factors.  Church,  Press  and  Parlia- 
ment cannot  counteract  the  impelling  force  of 
class  solidarity.  Pevolutionary  Labour  and 
Socialism  alone  can  direct  these  new-world  forces. 

I  was  amused  when  visiting  the  Putiloflf 
Engineering  Works,  near  Petrograd,  to  see  that 
the  Bolshevists  had  allowed  the  sacred  icons 
which  the  bourgeois  management  in  the  Tsarist 
days  had  placed  in  numerous  entrances  and  exits 
in  the  hope  that  the  workers  would  be  induced 
to  tolerate  their  hell -on -earth  existence  in 
expectation  of  reward  in  Heaven,  to  remain. 
Religious  icons  have  as  much  effect  on  the 
mentality  of  the  workers  in  a  modern  engineering 
establishment  as  the  dorne  of  St  Paul's  Cathedral 
or  the  front  of  Westminster  Abbey  have  on  the 
mind  of  a  London  bus  driver. 

Modern  wealth  production  has  become  an 
intricate  and  delicate  social  process.  The  problem 
of  production  has  been  already  solved,  but  we 
are  now  faced  with  the  problem  of  ensu ring- 
that  the  wealth  that  is  socially  produced  shall  be 
equitably  distributed.  "  From  each  according  to 
his  ability :  to  each  according  to  his  needs."  Those 
who  are  able  but  unwilling  to  work  shall  starve. 

"  Faint  in  the  East,  behold  the  dawn  appears!" 
says  Edward  Carpenter  in  one  of  his  beautiful 
Socialist  poems.  This  is  prophecy  as  well  as 
allegorical  allusion.  Russia  provides  us  with 
the  epoch-making  example  of  Socialism  at  work. 
Not  some-day  social  reconstruction  ;  not  fifty- 
years-hence   amelioration  of  wage-slavery ;   not 


144    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

high-sounding  phrase-mongering;  not  revolution- 
by-easy-gradual- and- imperceptible-accretions-of- 
social-reform  ;  but  to-day,  right-now,  Socialism 
or  Communism.  Russia,  which,  contrary  to 
much  of  what  scientific  Socialism  taught,  is  over- 
whelmingly agricultural,  and  not  having  gone 
through  the  industrial  transition,  proceeds  to 
unroll  the  great  world-drama  of  Class  War, 
proletarian  dictatorship  and  social  revolution. 
Never  let  it  be  forgotten  that  revolution  cannot 
succeed  unless  and  until  moral  and  economic 
preparedness  have  made  themselves  manifest. 
Russia  stumbles  through  1914,  1915,  1916  and 
a  small  portion  of  1917.  Notoriously  backward, 
industrially  and  agriculturally,  she  is  unable  to 
withstand  the  strain  of  the  long-drawn-out 
war.  The  tottering  Tsarist  bureaucracy  cannot 
give  the  populace  bread,  nor  could  Kerensky's 
bourgeois  Government  stabilise  capitalism  on 
the  Western  basis. 

During  1915  and  1916  one  could  only  dare 
hope  that  it  might  be  possible  to  avert  a  suc- 
cessful alliance  of  the  three  great  reactionary 
empires — Austria-Hungary,  Germany  and  Russia 
— emerging  from  the  war.  How  we  rejoiced  when 
in  February  1917  there  came  news  of  the  first 
soul-stirring  Revolution  and  the  abdication  of 
the  Tsar.  Who  amongst  revolutionaries  cared 
which  country  should  dictate  the  terms  of  peace, 
so  long  as  they  knew  that  the  people  of  Russia 
were  coming  into  their  long-delayed  heritage  ? 
History   must    testify   that    this,    the   Russian 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  145 

Revolution,  is  the  great  turning-point  of  the 
Twentieth  Century — the  break-up  of  capitalism 
and  landlordism  and  the  eventual  conquest  of 
power  by  the  resolute  Bolshevik  Party  in  Russia. 
Lenin,  the  implacable  revolutionary,  will  be 
honoured  by  posterity  when  the  names  of  the 
various  individuals  who  "  won  the  war"  will  be 
bidden  in  a  merciful  oblivion. 

I  have  already  made  reference,  in  the  chapter 
on  The  Changing  Outlook,  to  the  collapse  of 
what  is  called  the  "  Second  International."  It 
was  an  International  built,  not  upon  the  im- 
pregnable rock  of  international  working-class 
solidarity,  but  upon  the  shifting  sands  of  political 
exigency  and  parliamentary  expediency.  Its 
slogan,  uttered  faint-heartedly,  was  "  Death  to 
Militarism  "  ;  and  during  the  tumultuous  period 
of  declarations  of  war  and  the  mobilisation  of 
the  armed  forces  in  the  various  countries,  the 
leaders  of  the  Second  International,  if  they  had 
been  true  to  the  cause  which  they  nominally 
espoused,  would  have  resisted  by  every  means  in 
their  power  the  preparations  which  the  militarists 
and  imperialists  were  making  to  plunge  the 
workers  of  Europe  into  the  cauldron  of  war.  It 
was  as  true  in  August  1 9 1 4  as  it  was  in  1913,  and 
as  it  is  in  1921  :  the  workers  have  no  fatherland, 
the  workers'  interests  in  Great  Britain  are  not 
opposed  to  those  of  the  workers  in  Germany — in 
fact  their  interests  are  identical.  Their  eman- 
cipation from  age-long  wage-slavery  can  only  be 
achieved  by  the  overthrow  of  the  bourgeoisie,  the 

K 


146        THE   NEW  LABOUR   OUTLOOK 

landlord  and  capitalist  class,  together  with  their 
flunkeys  and  hangers-on,  Noske,  Schiedemann 
and  Legien  in  Germany ;  Appleton,  Henderson 
and  Barnes  in  Britain  ;  Renaudel  and  Jouhaux 
in  France  ;  Vandervelde  in  Belgium,  and  a  host 
of  others  too  numerous  to  mention,  conveniently 
forgot  all  they  had  ever  said  regarding  inter- 
national working-class  solidarity,  and  became 
social  patriots  of  the  most  pronounced  kind. 
Instead  of  ofi'ering  the  stoutest  and  most  un- 
yielding opposition  to  the  voting  of  the  credits, 
to  the  production  of  war  material  and  to  the 
mobilisation  and  transport  of  troops  and  muni- 
tions of  war,  they  took  part  in  the  recruiting 
campaigns,  the  campaigns  for  the  increase  of  the 
production  of  munitions  and  the  subordination 
of  working-class  interests  to  the  prosecution 
of  their  masters'  war.  Men  who,  before  the 
war,  had  predicted  the  downfall  of  European 
capitalism,  and  who  by  lip-service  championed 
the  cause  of  the  oppressed  of  all  lands,  men  like 
Hyndman,  Guesde,  Plekanhov,  Schiedemann  and 
Vandervelde,  themselves  the  champions  of  the 
Second  International,  delivered  the  death-blow 
to  that  International  during  the  period  of  the 
war.  Notwithstanding  the  palpable  recreancy, 
not  to  say  treachery,  of  these  erstwhile  social- 
revolutionaries,  these  class-war  advocates,  others 
remained  loyal  to  the  cause  of  international 
working-class  solidarity.  Even  during  the  war, 
when  efforts  in  that  direction  were  made  by  the 
Socialists  in  the  neutral  countries,  Renaudel,Van- 


THE    NEWER   OUTLOOK  147 

clervelde,  and  especially  the  chauvinistic  section 
of  the  British  Working-class  Movement,  strongly- 
opposed  each  and  every  attempt  to  re-establish 
the  Second  International,  So  early  in  the  war  as 
September  1914,  the  Swiss  Socialist  Party  under- 
took to  make  tentative  overtures  to  the  Socialists 
in  the  belligerent  countries  with  a  view  to  Socialist 
and  proletarian  reconciliation.  Again  in  April 
1915  there  were  further  conferences  and  inter- 
views, to  which,  of  course,  wide  publicity  could 
not  be  given,  because  of  the  repressive  methods 
adopted  by  Governments.  The  first  definite  and 
now  widely-known  attempt  to  re-establish  the 
International  was  made  in  May  1915,  the  out- 
come of  which  was,  that  in  September  of  the 
same  year  a  conference  was  held  at  Zimmerwalde, 
which  was  the  renaissance  of  the  International, 
Again,  a  further  conference  was  held,  this  time 
at  Kienthal,  in  April  1916,  which  was  attended 
by  Lenin  and  members  of  the  Revolutionary 
Left  of  the  International  Socialist  Movement. 

The  most  clearly  defined  aspiration  of  the 
Russian  Revolutionary  Movement,  after  the 
break-up  of  the  Tsarist  Government  in  February 
1917,  was  the  effort  to  hold  the  Stockholm  Con- 
ference in  the  same  year,  which  effort  was  so 
strongly  opposed  by  the  Governments  of  the 
belligerent  countries.  Russia  offered  a  way  out 
of  the  war  by  declaring  in  favour  of  peace  with- 
out annexations,  indemnities  and  with  the  right 
of  self-determination  of  peoples.  But  the  possi- 
bilities of  the   Stockholm   Conference  were  de- 


148    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

stroyed,  not  so  much  by  the  Governments,  as  by 
the  collusion  of  the  Socialist  leaders  of  the  Right, 
who  were  still  obsessed  with  the  desire  to  carry 
on  the  war  to  the  bitter  end. 

The  Second  International  bled  slowly  to  death 
because  of  the  complete  inability  of  its  most 
prominent  advocates  to  carry  out  the  implica- 
tions of  their  earlier  Socialist  principles.  After 
the  Second,  or  Communist,  Revolution  in  Russia, 
the  Bolshevik  Party  gradually  became  the 
strongest  Communist  Party  in  the  world.  The 
members  realised  that  as  the  Second  International 
had  superseded  the  First,  so  must  the  "  Third 
International  "  supersede  the  Second,  and  accord- 
ingly, in  March  1919,  at  Moscow,  the  First 
Congress  of  Communist  Parties  was  held,  based 
upon  an  immediate  Socialist  Revolution  in  all 
countries,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Dictator- 
ship of  the  Proletariat  as  a  means  of  effecting  the 
final  and  decisive  overthrow  of  the  International 
bourgeoisie.  No  illusions  concerning  Interna- 
tional Capitalism  were  entertained  by  the  Russian 
Communist  Party ;  they  must  either  destroy 
capitalism  in  Western  Europe,  they  declared,  or 
themselves  be  destroyed. 

War  has  been  waged  against  the  Soviet  institu- 
tions by  Koltchak,  Denikin,  Yudenitch,  Ironside, 
Wrangel  and  by  Poland,  each  and  every  counter- 
revolutionary action  being  supported,  either 
jointly  or  in  their  respective  turns,  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  International  capitalism, and  particu- 
larly by  the  assassins  of  the  British  Government. 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  149 

Tiie  first  business  of  the  directors  of  Soviet 
policy  was  to  searcli  the  archives  of  their  own 
Foreign  Office,  in  order  to  discover  the  facts  and 
the  inferences  obtainable  from  the  documents 
concerning  the  secret  treaties  made  between 
Tsarist  Russia  and  her  Allies.  There  is  abundant 
documentary  evidence  proving  the  complicity  of 
the  British  Government  especially,  and  the  Allied 
G-overnments  in  general,  in  the  various  efforts 
to  overthrow  the  Soviet  regime.  Mr  Churchill, 
the  War  Minister,  conspired,  over  the  heads  of 
the  "  sovereign  people  "  of  Great  Britain,  and 
behind  the  backs  of  many  of  his  colleagues  in  the 
Government,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  all  the 
help  possible  to  the  counter-revolutionaries  who 
have  from  time  to  time  attacked  Soviet  Eussia. 
While  the  British  Labour  Delegation  were  in 
Moscow  they  were  placed  in  possession  of  a 
document  proving  that  Churchill  conspired  with 
Lieut. -General  Golovin,  who  was  acting  as  a 
kind  of  liaison  officer  between  the  Allied  Govern- 
ments and  Sazanoff,  the  ex-Tsarist  Minister  of 
Russia,  then  resident  in  Paris.  This  document, 
sent  by  Golovin  to  Sazanoff,  was  in  turn  sent  to 
Koltchak  at  Omsk,  to  the  White  Government  at 
Archangel,  which  was  controlled  in  a  military 
sense  by  General  Ironside  in  the  name  of  Great 
Britain,  and  also  to  Denikin's  forces  operating  in 
the  Crimea.  In  the  report  of  the  interview 
between  himself  and  Churchill,  which  Golovin 
presents,  Mr  Churchill  has  placed  it  on  record 
that — 


150    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

1.  The  question  of  giving  armed  support  was  for 
himself  the  most  difficult  one  ;  the  reason  for  this 
was  the  opposition  of  the  British  working-class  to 
armed  intervention.  But  even  in  this  matter, 
without  promising  anything,  he  would  try  to  help. 
He  had  declared  in  the  House  of  Commons  that 
fresh  forces  were  necessary  for  the  purpose  of 
evacuating  the  North. 

2.  As  far  as  giving  us  material  support  was 
concerned,  Churchill  said  that  he  is  already  giving 
such,  and  that  he  will  continue  to  do  so  to  the  fullest 
possible  extent ;  for  this  he  intends  to  ask  for  twenty- 
four  million  pounds  sterling  for  the  supply  of  all  our 
fronts,  and  if  the  circumstances  will  require  it,  he 
is  willing  to  supply  armaments  and  other  materials 
for  the  Northern  Army  and  for  General  Yudenitch 
for  another  £100,000. 

Here  we  have  the  fullest  and  most  satisfactory 
proof  of  the  utility  of  the  direct  action  campaign 
initiated  by  the  Triple  Alliance  in  1919. 

The  Russian  Communists  realise,  as  indeed  all 
Communists  realise,  that  if  Russia  is  allowed  to 
divert  her  younger  and  more  virile  manhood  from 
the  various  fighting  fronts,  into  what  she  calls 
her  "bloodless  front,"  namely,  industrial  and  agri- 
cultural operations,  she  will  be  able  to  establish  a 
state  of  affairs,  wherein  conditions  of  life  of  the 
working-class  in  Russia  will  gradually  improve, 
as  they  are  gradually  worsening,  because  of  the 
economic  collapse,  in  all  the  capitalist  countries  ; 
and  it  is  because  of  these  attacks  from  without,  and 
the  conditions  obtaining  elsewhere,  that  the  Third 
International  has  set  its  mind  on  the  practicability 
of  World  Revolution.  All  the  factors  which 
operated  in  Russia  to  bring  about  the  final  over- 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  151 


throw  of  capitalism  are  operating  to  a  greater  or 
lesser  degree  throughout  Europe  and  America. 

In  Britain  a  numerically  weak,  but  morally 
influential  Communist  Party  is  already  in  being, 
and  every  day  brings  an  accession  of  strength  to 
its  ranks.  Periodically,  Mr  Ramsay  Macdonald 
and  his  colleagues  of  the  Second  International 
may  make  an  appeal  on  behalf  of  that  body, 
which  rejects  the  principle  of  the  Dictatorship 
of  the  Proletariat  and  an  armed  insurrection  on 
the  part  of  the  workers.  Every  manifesto  issued 
on  behalf  of  the  Second  International  receives 
the  fullest  approval  of  the  Capitalist  Press,  and 
that  approval  and  the  patronage  bestowed  by 
leader  writers  on  Mr  Ramsay  Macdonald  and 
his  colleagues  hastens  its  collapse,  and  that  of 
such  of  its  adherents  as  remain.  In  Germany 
the  Left  section  of  the  Independent  Socialists 
and  the  Communist  Party  have  held  their  Unity 
Conference,  and  to-day  they  go  forward  from 
success  to  success,  with  over  half  a  million 
members,  pledged  to  all  the  implications  of 
Communism  and  the  forcible  overthrow  of  the 
bourgeoisie  by  the  working-class.  In  France 
the  Leaders  of  the  Centre  as  well  as  those  of 
the  Right  have  refused  to  accept  the  principles 
upon  which  the  Third  International  has  been 
established,  but  the  Communist  Party  remains, 
and  will  develop  in  proportion  to  the  collapse 
of  the  superstructure  of  French  capitalist  society, 
and  the  hastening  process  of  disillusionment  of 
the  French  workers  and  smaller  peasants. 

The  Third  International  is  an  organisation  of 


152    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

deeds  and  not  words ;  its  leaders  and  its  Executive 
are  fully  aware  that  a  Revolution  cannot  be  actu- 
ally brought  about  entirely  by  agitation,  but 
they  declare  unhesitatingly  that  the  forces  which 
operated  to  bring  about  the  destruction  of  the 
Tsarist  Government  in  Russia,  and  eventually 
the  overthrow  of  the  bourgeoisie,  are  operating 
to  a  greater  or  lesser  degree  in  every  country 
where  capitalist  institutions  are  dominant.  Un- 
employment, destitution,  ruin  and  starvation 
face  the  working-class  under  bourgeois  misrule. 

Is  it  to  be  imagined  that  the  German  work- 
people are  going  to  pay  rent,  interest  and  profit 
to  their  own  landlord  and  capitalist  class,  and 
then  furnish  to  the  Allies  the  indemnities 
demanded  under  the  Peace  Treaty  of  Versailles  ? 
The  German  working-class  must  eventually 
become  Red,  as  did  the  Russian  working-class. 

While  the  Revolutionary  Movement  in  Western 
Europe  will  derive  additional  strength  from  the 
worthy  object-lesson  of  the  Russian  experiment, 
so,  on  the  other  hand,  however  well  the  reaction- 
ary forces  arm  and  prepare  to  resist  a  repetition 
in  their  respective  countries,  the  development  of 
the  Third  International  will  increase  with  the 
growth  of  economic  pressure.  It  does  not  admit 
the  rights  of  property  or  of  hereditary  privileges ; 
it  contemplates  the  salvation  of  the  toiling  masses 
of  the  world,  who  have  been  hitherto  enslaved  by 
the  capitalist  system,  and  whose  lot  has  been  de- 
graded and  dehumanised  by  war  and  the  aftermath 
of  war.     The  Third,  or  Communist,  International 


THE   NEWER   OUTLOOK  153 

repudiates  bourgeois  democracy.  It  says  plainly 
and  unmistakably  that  to  resist  the  dictatorship 
of  the  workers  is  to  accept  the  dictatorship  of 
the  exploiters;  it  neither  shudders  at  nor  shrinks 
from  the  implications  of  an  armed  uprising,  with 
the  possibility,  nay,  certainty,  of  sanguinary 
casualties ;  its  exponents,  realising  the  havoc  of 
war  and  the  horrors  of  industrial  peace,  are 
prepared  to  take  every  risk,  to  make  every 
sacrifice  and  to  suffer  any  ordeal,  in  order  to 
bring  about  proletarian  emancipation.  Better 
one  death  in  the  glorious  cause  of  the  social 
revolution,  than  a  hundred  in  a  bond-holders'  war. 

The  corpse  of  the  Second  International  has 
been  brought  to  London,  but  the  guile  and 
subterfuge  of  its  champions  and  the  patronage 
of  the  bourgeois  Press  and  politicians  cannot  save 
it  from  decay  and  putrescence.  Bourgeois  social 
democracy  is  as  dead  as  Manchester  Liberalism  ; 
and  the  now  energetic  and  pulsating  Third 
International  is  destined  to  grow  as  unemploy- 
ment and  destitution  make  themselvesincreasingly 
manifest  in  Western  Europe.  Capitalism  cannot 
restabilise  itself,  and  despite  the  frantic  efforts 
of  its  avowed  supporters,  as  well  as  those  of  others 
who  attempt  to  curry  favour  by  allying  them- 
selves therewith,  a  new  order,  based  upon  pro- 
letarian brotherhood,  must  supersede  capitalism. 

The  Second  International  is  Dead  :  Long  live 
the  Third  Internatfonal ! 


IN  CONCLUSION 

To  summarise  tlie  foregoing  chapters,  one  has 
pointedly  to  declare  one's  own  beliefs  regarding 
immediate  and  ultimate  developments. 

We  social  revolutionaries  do  not  ask  ourselves 
whether  the  Revolution  is  cominsc,  although  we 
speculate  as  to  how  it  will  come.  Nor  do  we 
testify  everlastingly  to  our  oAvn  studied  modera- 
tion by  discussing  how  easy  matters  will  be  for 
the  exploiter  "  when  Labour  rules."  Socialism 
or  Communism  to  us  is  not  the  government  of 
men  so  much  as  the  administration  of  things. 

Noske  and  Schiedemann  wanted  to  "govern" 
with  the  help  of  the  White  Guards  and  the 
discarded  Prussian  jack-boot. 

An  iron  discipline  will,  of  course,  be  necessary 
during  the  revolutionary  crises,  and  later  in  the 
transition  from  Capitalism  to  Communism. 

The  Old  Order  is  visibly  breaking  up.  The 
unemployment  problem  becomes  more  and  more 
acute.  Those  who  have  taken  toll  of  three- 
fourths  of  the  product  of  our  labour  in  reward 
for  their  "directive  ability"  and  "superior 
brains "  cannot  avert  the  disinteg-ration  and 
decay  of  their  own  cherished  system.  During 
the  war  they  accumulated  piles  of  credit  and 
money  values,  which  to-day  they  are  totally 
unable  to  realise.  The  free  circulation  of  com- 
modities is  the  breath  of  the  nostrils  of  the 
Capitalist  System. 

154 


CONCLUSION  155 


They  spent  £8,000,000,000  destroying  life, 
and  now  shrink  from  spending  a  tithe  of  this  to 
maintain  life.  They  would  have  spent  another 
£8,000,000,000  and  waded  through  seas  of 
human  blood  to  destroy  the  Soviet  power  in 
Russia,  if  Labour  had  voted  the  men  and 
materials  as  willingly  as  a  suborned  House  of 
Commons  voted  the  credits. 

The  Representativesof  theFederation  of  British 
Industries,  the  Financiers,  the  Landlords,  the 
Brewers,  the  Distillers  and  the  time-serving 
office-bearers  who  constitute  the  Coalition,  are 
in  a  mess  from  which  they  are  unable  to  extricate 
their  precious  selves.  They  want  Germany  to 
pay  hundreds  of  millions  of  pounds  in  goods  to 
us  and  France  at  a  time  when  they  are  formu- 
lating anti-dumping  legislation. 

During  the  war,  and  in  order  to  lessen  our 
debts  to  the  United  States,  the  British  Govern- 
ment requisitioned  millions  of  pounds'  worth  of 
overseas  securities  which  were  taken  from  the 
previous  owners  in  exchange  for  war-script.  The 
workers  of  those  countries  in  which  investments 
were  made  will  now  pay  tribute,  not  to  the  British 
investors,  but  to  the  American  bond-holders  ;  but 
the  British  investors  will  get,  or  attempt  to  get,  a 
satisfactory  return,  and  it  can  come  only  from  the 
British  working-class,  who,  if  they  consent,  will  be 
doubly  exploited  to  pay  interest  onthewar-inflated 
homeinvestments  and  the  war-indebtedness.  Well 
may  we  say  that  while  young  men  gave  their  lives, 
old  men  loaned  their  money  ! 


156    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

The  Capitalist  System  is  packed  full  with  its 
own  inherent  contradictions.  AVise  men,  wishful 
to  preserve  the  present  order,  would  have  cut 
the  loans  from  one  country  to  another  and  stimu- 
lated international  trade  to  the  utmost  degree, 
rather  than  hampering  and  embarrassing  it  to 
the  extent  to  which  the  present  mismanagers 
have  done.  Trade  and  commerce  need  peace 
and  trading  with  Russia,  but  finance  and  short- 
sighted politics  promote  war,  and,  when  this  fails, 
sabotage  trade. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  character  of  the 
Government  restrains  Lloyd  George  from  the 
course  which  instinctively  he  knows  to  be  best 
for  him  and  his  colleagues.  He  has  realised  that 
the  costly  Russian  war  will  bring  its  Nemesis,  as 
the  Boer  War  did  to  all  who  actively  supported  it. 

No,  do  what  they  now  can,  these  contradic- 
tions will  perplex  and  ultimately  baffle  them. 
Unemployment  increases,  and  while  some  tem- 
porary relief  may  come  in  the  Spring  or  Summer 
with  increased  trade,  the  crisis  generally  will 
become  more  and  more  acute.  Their  suggested 
remedy  for  bad  trade — lower  wages — can  only 
adversely  affect  the  total  volume  of  employment 
by  lessening  the  effective  demand  at  home.  The 
stalwarts  of  the  Capitalist  System  in  Europe  and 
America  may  look  confidently  forward  to  a  general 
decrease  in  wages,  forced  down  by  the  pressure 
of  the  unemployed ;  but  this  will  stimulate 
enormously  the  revolutionary  movement. 

If  the  governing  classes  are  able  to  weather 


CONCLUSION  157 


the  present  storm,  it  will  only  be  for  a  time, 
when  they  will  be  confronted  with  another  even 
more  furious.  The  Labour  Movement  is  gather- 
ing strength  and  momentum  for  an  attack  by 
some  form  of  mass  action.  This  threatened  at  the 
time  of  the  Railway  Strike  in  1919;  it  became 
again  practicable  during  the  Mining  Strike  of 
1920.  The  Triple  Alliance,  had  it  but  responded 
to  the  pressure  of  the  militants  at  the  time  of 
the  most  recent  mining  crisis,  would  have  pre- 
cipitated a  revolutionary  situation. 

Those  who  constantly  aver  that  the  British 
working-class  would  not  participate  in  a  general 
strike  policy  do  not  know  the  history  of  their  own 
Trade  Union  and  Labour  Movement.  Industri- 
ally, the  British  Labour  Movement  is  the  best 
and  strongest  in  the  world.  Did  not  Marx  say 
we  were  the  prize-fighters  of  the  International 
Proletariat  ?  Politically  we  move  slowly,  but 
we  move.  Direct  action  for  political  purposes, 
as  has  been  shown  over  and  over  again,  has 
captured  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  working- 
class.  There  were  prejudices  to  be  overcome  ; 
there  were  obstinate  individuals  to  be  strenuously 
fought  in  our  own  ranks  ;  but  the  outer  defences 
of  our  opponents  have  been  destroyed. 

Moreover,  to  learn  to  strike  straight  is  to  learn 
to  vote  straight.  The  recent  Bye-Election  at 
Abertillery,  where  one  of  the  foremost  advocates 
of  direct  action  won  so  signal  a  victory,  proves 
the  accuracy  of  the  foregoing  contention.  It 
will  come  to  be  regarded  that  he  who  votes  for 


158    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

a  candidate  of  the  master  class  is  as  much  an 
enemy  of  the  Working-class  as  one  who  "  scabs" 
in  an  industrial  dispute. 

Industrial  solidarity  is  the  prelude  of  political 
solidarity.  Every  strike,  whether  for  definite  econ- 
omic advance  or  for  political  purpose,  is  a  phase 
of  the  class  struggle.  Clear-thinking  workers 
now  recognise  that  to  attempt  to  improve  their 
economic  status  by  raising  nominal  or  money 
wages  is  like  twisting  ropes  of  sand.  They  sup- 
port wage  movements  nevertheless,  because  they 
increase  militancy,  stimulate  class  antagonism, 
and  bring  disillusionment  of  the  old-time  fallacy 
of  a  "  Fair  day's  wage  for  a  fair  day's  work." 

"Increased  Output,"  as  a  ready-made  panacea, 
was  loudly  acclaimed  immediately  following  the 
Armistice,  not  only  by  the  Government  and  the 
employing  class,  but  was  repeated  by  certain 
well  -  known  Labour  leaders  in  the  infamous 
"  Gate  to  More  "  posters  which  confronted  us  on 
the  public  hoardings.  How  futile  were  these 
"reach-me-down"  arguments  can  be  better 
appreciated  to-day,  when  the  unemployed  army 
totals  something  like  two  million  men  and 
women,  and  the  policy  of  the  self-same  Govern- 
ment and  employers  appears  to  be  decreased 
production  and  universal  short-time. 

The  growingly  intelligent  mass  may  be  de- 
ceived once  or  twice,  but  they  cannot  be  deceived 
for  ever.  Those  Trade  Union  officials  who 
eagerly  supported  the  appeals  made  by  and  on 
behalf  of  the  master  class  for  increased  output, 


CONCLUSION  159 


despite  the  fact  that  they  have  tried  to  eat  their 
own  egregious  words,  have  lost  any  influence 
they  ever  had  with  the  discerning  section  of  the 
workers.  "  More  production  "  under  the  Capi- 
talist System  must  and  can  only  mean  more  un- 
employment. Under  Socialism,  increased  output 
would  automatically  add  to  the  available  supplies 
to  be  equitably  distributed  among  one  and  all,  and 
would  give  everyone  an  improved  standard. 

When  it  comes,  the  revolutionary  situation 
will  be  the  result  of  the  partial  or  complete 
collapse  of  the  present  order  of  society.  It  may 
emerge  from  the  acute  unemployment  crisis ;  it 
may  come  after  the  captains  of  industry  attempt 
successfully  or  unsuccessfully  to  take  advantage 
of  the  mass  of  unemployed  to  force  down  the 
wages  of  those  who  remain  in  employment. 
Mass  action  will  produce  general  strike  organi- 
sation on  the  lines  of  Workers'  Councils ;  this 
will  challenge  existing  political  organisation. 
The  Labour  Party  may  have  parliamentary 
power  thrust  upon  them  by  such  a  crisis,  but 
unless  and  until  they  have  absolute  economic  and 
industrial  control  vested  in  their  hands,  this  will 
be  of  no  more  avail  than  the  Kerensky  regime  in 
Russia  or  the  Noske-Schiedemann  Government 
of  Germany.  Insistently  will  come  the  demand  : 
"  All  power  to  the  Workers'  Councils."  This  is 
the  underlying  idea  of  the  Soviets. 

The  British  form  of  trade  unionism  was  the 
one  which  ultimately  set  the  standard  for  trade 
unionism    throughout    the   whole  world       Not 


160    THE  NEW  LABOUR  OUTLOOK 

because  it  had  any  special  advantages,  or  because 
there  was  any  distinct  and  inherent  wisdom  on 
the  part  of  its  founders.  Meeting  the  compelling 
needs  occasioned  by  the  development  of  British 
capitalism,  it  served  to  represent  the  workers' 
opposition  to  the  tyranny  or  oppression  of  the 
employing  or  capitalist  class. 

German  social  democracy,  upon  the  founda- 
tion of  the  teachings  of  Marx  and  Engels  and 
under  the  leadership  of  August  Bebel,  was  the 
example  upon  which  Parliamentary  Socialism 
sought  in  every  country  to  extend.  This  being 
the  product  of  a  later  period  was  regarded  as 
something  to  work  in  and  through  the  Capitalist 
System,  but,  gradually,  it  was  held,  tended  to 
supersede  that  system. 

Parliamentary  democracy  is  a  myth  exploded 
by  the  war  and  the  developments  arising  from 
the  war.  The  Soviet  idea,  or  that  of  Workers', 
Soldiers'  and  Peasants'  Councils,  is  one  which, 
by  factory  and  workshop  representation,  goes 
right  down  to  the  roots  of  the  Capitalist  System 
and  destroys  it  at  its  very  foundations. 

Before  success  is  ultimately  achieved,  mountains 
of  work  will  have  to  be  accomplished,  but  that 
will  be  done  before  and  during  the  revolutionary 
crisis.  Finally,  the  militant  proletariat  in  this, 
as  in  every  capitalist  country,  will  work  stead- 
fastly for,  and  dedicate  and  devote  themselves 
unceasingly  to,  the  Social  Revolution;  peacefully, 
if  possible,  but — the  Social  Revolution, 


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LAND  NATIONALISATION,  by  A.  Emil 
Daviesy  L.C.C.,  and  Dorothy  Evans  (formerly 
Organizer,  Land  Nationalisation  Society). 

In  the  past  the  importance  of  the  land  problem  has  been 
neglected,  but  now  the  changed  conditions  brought  about  by  the 
war  call  for  increased  production  at  home.  This  book  shows 
that  the  present  system  of  land  ownership  impedes  production 
on  every  hand  and  stands  in  the  way  of  almost  every  vital  reform. 

The  authors  contend  that  no  solution  of  the  serious  problems 
that  confront  the  community  can  be  found  until  the  nation 
itself  becomes  the  ground  landlord  of  the  country  in  which  it 
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The  theme  of  this  book  is  the  new  orientation  of  the  aims  of 
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themselves  that  by  so  doing  they  will  immediately  improve  their 
economic  status  and  ultimately  establish  a  new  social  order. 

A  separate  chapter  dealing  with  the  collapse  of  the  Second  and 
the  development  of  the  Third  or  Moscow  International  indicates 
the  connection  between  the  present  political  crises  in  many  coun- 
tries and  the  economic  class-struggle  which  is  now  proceeding. 

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SOCIALISM  AND  PERSONAL 
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Second  Country".) 

"Personal  Liberty  in  the  Socialist  State"  is  an  old  controversy, 
and  the  publishers  feel  that  Mr.  Dell's  new  volume  will  evoke 
widespread  interest  and  discussion. 

The  author  shows  that  Socialism  is  not  necessarily  incompatible 
with  personal  freedom,  or  with  individualism  properly  understood, 
but  is  rather  an  essential  condition  of  both.  He  contends  that 
economic  freedom  is  unattainable  under  Capitalist  conditions  by- 
any  but  the  owners  of  capital  and  that  individual  liberty  is  being 
threatened  by  political  democracy,  which  is  becoming  a  tyranny 
of  the  majority. 

OPEN  DIPLOMACY,  by  E.  T>.  Morel 
(author  of  "Red  Rubber,"  "The  Black  Man's 
Burden,"  etc.). 

"Foreign  Policy  and  Secret  Diplomacy"  continue  to  be  terms 
invested  with  some  icind  of  mysterious  attributes.  In  this  volume 
Mr.  Morel  endeavours  to  simplify  a  problem  which  still  remains 
complicated  and  obscure  to  the  general  public.  He  shows  us 
"foreign  policy"  as  an  influence  working  in  our  everyday  lives. 
He  brings  "diplomacy"  into  our  homes,  and  serves  it  up  as  a  dish 
upon  the  breakfast  table.  He  depicts  us  helpless  automata  moving 
blindfolded  in  a  world  of  make-believe  untii  we  secure  an  effective 
democratic  control  over  the  management  of  our  foreign  relations, 

PROLETCULT,  by  Eden  and  Cedar  "Paul 
(authors  of  "Creative  Revolution"). 

Education  to-day,  availing  itself  of  the  widest  means,  employing 
the  press  and  the  cinemas  no  less  effectively  than  the  schools, 
imposes  upon  the  community  the  idiology,  the  cultured  outlook, 
of  the  ruling  class. 

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The  authors  contend  that  among  the  working  classes  there  are 
many  who  strive  for  the  realisation  of  a  new  culture. 

Proletcult  (proletarian  culture)  organises  and  consolidates  the 
thought-forces  which  will  complete  the  overthrow  of  Capitalism. 
It  will  then  inaugurate  and  build  up  the  economic  and  social,  the 
artistic  and  intellectual  life  of  the  "new  era".  This  great  and 
far-reaching  contemporary  movement  is  the  theme  of  "  Proletcult." 

AN    AGRICULTURAL    POLICY,    by    F. 

E.    Green    (author    of   "  A    History    of    the 
Agricultural  Labourer,  1870- 1920,"  etc.). 

Whilst  this  book  deals  with  the  country-side,  and  will  be 
enjoyed  by  every  farm  worker,  it  is  of  absorbing  interest  to  the 
man  in  the  street.  It  is  not  a  dry  technical  treatise  but  is  a  work 
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responsible  for  the  present  state  of  agriculture.  It  discusses 
whether  small  holdings  or  large  holdings  should  be  encouraged, 
and  outlines  a  scheme  which  would  give  the  whole  nation  as  well 
as  the  workers  an  interest  in  the  success  of  agriculture.  The  book 
should  be  read  in  conjunction  with  "Land  Nationalisation"  by 
Emil  Davies. 

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Mr.  Brimley  Johnson  reveals  the  fine  art  of  their  craftsmanship 
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SOCIALISM  AND  CO-OPERATION,  by 
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to  clear  Serbia  of  typhus  and  she  herself  died  there  from  the  disease. 

Before  going  to  Serbia  during  the  war,  Dr.  Ross  worked  in 
Persia  among  the  semi-civilized  Bakhtiari  tribes,  and  this  book 
contains  the  record  of  her  experiences. 

STRAY  THOUGHTS  AND  MEMORIES, 
by  the  late  James  A.  Rentoul,  K.C.,  LL.D. 
Edited  by  L,  Rentoul.     Demy  8vo,    18/-  net. 

These  memories  were  jotted  down  by  Judge  Rentoul  during  a 
prolonged  illness  and  have  been  collected  for  publication  by  his 
sister  after  his  death. 

Miss  Rentoul  includes  reminiscences  of  her  brother's  earlier 
days  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  of  his  career  at  the  English  Bar  and  as 
Judge  of  the  City  of  London  and  Central  Criminal  Courts. 

The  book  also  contains  Judge  Rentoul's  views  on  social  and 
political  questions  on  which  he  felt  very  strongly  during  his  whole 
life,  and  on  which  he  spoke  and  wrote  frankly  and  fearlessly. 

RED  RUBBER,  by  E.  T>.  Morel.  New  and 
Revised  Edition.      Crown  8vo,  6/-  net. 

Mr.  Morel  is  one  of  the  few  men  whose  work  for  the  world 
may  truly  be  described  as  heroic.  Against  all  the  forces  of 
royalty,  wealth,  indifference,  and  statecraft,  Mr.  Morel  for  ten 
unresting  years  waged  a  conflict  as  noble  as  any  recorded  in  our 
history.  No  one  could  desire  a  more  glorious  monument  of  his 
life  than  this  book  forms. 

LEONARD   PARSONS  LIMITED 


MISCELLANEOUS 


THE  BLACK  MAN'S  BURDEN,  by  E, 
T>.  More/.     Crown  8vo,  6/-  net. 

The  tragic  story  of  one  of  the  greatest  crimes  in  history — the 
wrongs  inflicted  by  the  white  races  upon  the  black.  A  book  that 
is  indispensable  to  every  social  reformer. 

MY  YEARS  OF  EXILE,  by  EduarJ 
^ernstein^  the  well-known  German  Socialist. 
Translated  by  'Bernard  MialL  Demy  8vo, 
I  5/-  net  . 

This  is  a  translation  by  Mr.  Bernard  Miall  of  Eduard  Bern- 
stein's "  Aus  den  Jahren  Meines  Exils."  In  this  volume  the 
veteran  socialist  gives  a  spirited  account  of  his  travels  and  his 
years  of  exile  in  Italy,  Switzerland,  Denmark  and  England.  As 
a  prominent  socialist  and  Editor  of  Die  TLukunft  he  was  outlawed 
by  Bismarck's  Government.  For  a  great  part  of  his  lifetime  he 
made  his  home  in  London,  where  to  many  Londoners  still  in 
their  prime  he  was  a  familiar  friend. 

During  his  long  residence  in  London  he  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  all  the  leading  personalities  of  the  time,  and  the 
reader  will  meet  in  these  pages  with  many  famous  and  familiar 
figures  :  Marx  and  his  ill-fated  daughter,  Bebel,  the  elder  Lieb- 
knecht,  Engels,  Stepniak,  William  Morris,  H.  M.  Hyndman, 
"G.B.S.,"  John  Burns,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hubert  Bland,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Sidney  Webb,  J.  R.  MacDonald,  etc. 

Particularly  interesting  is  his  account  of  Engels'  famous  Sunday 
evenings.  In  addition  to  presenting  an  interesting  picture  of 
Socialist  circles  in  London,  this  volume  throws  many  sidelights 
on  the  development  of  the  movement  in  Germany  and  on  the 
Continent  in  general. 

No  one  interested  in  Socialism  or  the  Fabian  Society  should 
miss  this  unique  book. 

LEONARD    PARSONS   LIMITED 


8  MISCELLANEOUS 

WOMEN  AND  CHILDREN,  by  Hugh  de 
Selincourt.     Crown  8vo,  8/6  net. 

This  is  a  novel  which,  while  primarily  a  work  of  art,  should  be 
of  absorbing  interest  to  all  who  realise  the  inestimable  importance 
of  sexual  psychology,  and  the  value  of  a  proper  and  enlightened 
education  in  sexual  matters.  The  chief  characters  in  "  Women 
and  Children  "  have  not  had  the  privilege  of  such  education,  and 
the  lack  comes  near  to  wrecking  their  lives.  In  the  heroine, 
a  distinguished  feminist  and  a  "  welfare "  inspector  during  the 
war,  the  lack  is  overcome  by  courage,  humour,  and  the  maternal 
instinct.  In  the  Dwarf,  her  friend,  it  has  meant  a  solitary  life, 
and  for  a  time  threatens  to  wreck  his  friendship  for  her  ;  but  she 
is  able  to  restore  his  sanity  by  a  gesture  beautiful  in  its  courageous 
generosity.  In  her  lover,  Hubert  Bonner,  cast  up  by  the  war,  a 
"  shell-shock "  sufferer  at  a  loose  end,  it  means  clumsiness  in 
approaching  women,  diffidence,  shame  and  irritability.  The 
rehabilitated  Dwarf,  however,  brings  the  lovers  together  after  a 
misunderstanding  that  is  nearly  final,  and  so  leaves  the  three  of 
them  planning  a  school  on  new  lines.  As  a  foil  to  these  three 
victims  of  Victorian  prudery  we  have  a  family  of  *'  simple  lifers." 
Mr.  de  Selincourt  thinks  courageously  and  writes  with  distinction 
and  an  unusual  sensitiveness  to  obscure  but  significant  moods.  The 
book  contains  some  notable  scenes  and  should  not  be  missed  by 
any  amateur  of  modern  fiction. 


LEONARD     l^^m     PARSONS,  LTD. 

DEVONSHIRE  STREET        H^snH         BLOOMSBURY,  LONDON 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


'^2  1934 


/ 


Form  L-9-35>«-8,'28 


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.ul  ',    of  CALiyOKW** 

LOa  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


